Announcing:

Saint Mary's Press winner for the week of July 24, 2009!
Congratulations to Karen Golem!

Karen Golem will receive a copy of the The Catholic Connections Handbook for Middle Schoolers, a $18.95 value.

Whether middle schoolers encounter this book as part of the Catholic Connections program in faith formation or pick it up out of curiosity, The Catholic Connections Handbook for Middle Schoolers offers great guidance and aims to help young teens learn about all the central aspects of the Catholic faith, including God, revelation, faith, Jesus the Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Church, liturgy and sacraments, Christian morality and justice, and prayer.

The Catholic Connections Handbook for Middle Schoolers is a great tool for study, but it is more than that. It offers excellent guidance for praying and living the Catholic faith.

The Subcommittee on the Catechism (formerly the Ad Hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism), United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, has found this catechetical text, copyright 2009, to be in conformity with the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Look Inside: You can find an online sampler of The Catholic Connections Handbook on the SMP Web catalog. Search for "Catholic Connections Handbook," or use this link to go to the product description, http://www.smp.org/ItemDetail.cfm?ItemNum=2150. Then use the "look inside" button next to the cover image to see the table of contents, the introduction, and pages from chapter 1 and chapter 15.

The Catholic Connections Handbook for Middle Schoolers
by Janet Claussen, Pat Finan, Diana Macalintal, Jerry Shepherd,
Susan Stark, and Chris Wardwell
ISBN 978-0-88489-994-5, paper, 552 pages, $18.95 http://www.smp.org/ItemDetail.cfm?ItemNum=2150

Also available in hardcover.

Catholic Connections School Edition

The Catholic Connections Handbook for Middle Schoolers is supported by a full parish religious education program, including six catechist's guide, a coordinator's manual, and an eSource support Web site.

Coming in September, it will also be supported for school classrooms with a teaching manual, a student workbook, and testbooks for students in grades 6-7. These school resources will also have an eSource support Web site.

For more information or to request examination copies of either the parish or the school editions of the Catholic Connections program, contact your Saint Mary's Press sales consultant.

Catholic Connections School Edition

Review of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

by Brian Singer-Towns

I?m disagreeing with the Vatican?well the Vatican newspaper?over the new Harry Potter movie, ?Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.? L'Osservatore Romano says the film is the best adaptation of the J.K. Rowling series so far and gave it four stars. But I think the previous five were more engaging. This film was certainly fun to watch, well-acted, and had great special effects. But in my humble opinion it lacked a clear central conflict to tie everything together (Voldemort never makes an appearance.)

Judging from the audience in my local theatre, this will be a very popular movie with children, teens, and families. And the film will give families and youth gatherings great opportunities for discussions. Relationships are the central focus of the movie, both disciple-mentor relationships and teen love relationships. Here are a few ideas to get some discussion started:

• If you really like somebody, how should you let that person know it? What were some of the ways the characters in the movie got the attention of the opposite sex? Were they were they positive or negative ways of attracting attention?
• What should you do if that person is going out with someone else? Did Harry and Hermione handle this challenge well?
• What life lessons was Dumbledore teaching Harry? What do you think about Dumbledore asking Harry to take do ?whatever it takes? to get needed information from Prof. Slughorn?
• At the end, Prof. Snape does something bad but for apparently good reasons. Does a good reason ever justify an evil action?