Central Coast Missions in California

Children's Literature - Marilyn Courtot

This book in the seven book "Exploring California Missions" series (six regions plus an activity book) chronicles the story of Santa Barbara, Santa Ines and La Purisima. As with the other books, it starts with a discussion of Native American early life, before the coming of the Spanish priests and soldiers. The building of the missions and the introduction of the Catholic religion changed forever the natives' way of life. Historians and others may debate the positive and negative impact of these changes, but it is important for young readers to understand as fully as possible what happened and why. A timeline, a glossary, an index, a pronunciation guide, a list of selected additional readings and plenty of color and black-and-white illustrations enliven the text. In addition to their applicability in a classroom setting, the books would be extremely useful to those planning to visit any of the California missions. Santa Barbara is called Queen of the Missions because it is so attractive and was made of white stone. Many of the missions, which were originally built of adobe, suffered some or total damage in earthquakes and were abandoned or rebuilt of stronger materials. This publication, dated 2008, makes no reference to the earlier "California Missions" set published by the same company in 1996. The text appears to be simpler. Although this reviewer found a typo on page 22, the design is more inviting and the set could be used for students in the 3rd grade and up. Reviewer: Marilyn Courtot