Mother Teresa: Helping the Poor

Children's Literature - Nancy Partridge

This highly respectful book chronicles the life of the well-known Mother Teresa. From early childhood to old age, the author clearly writes about important events and turning points of an unusual life spent in service to the poor. The clean and simple layout of the book makes it easy to read, with an attractive border around each page. An abundance of photographs accompanies the well-written text. There is also a detailed index in the back, as well as a table of important dates and suggested further readings, making this a useful biographical resource for the classroom. The book is part of a series called "Gateway Biographies," stories of intriguing people written for children.

School Library Journal

Gr 3-5-- Of these two biographies, Mother Teresa is the better one. Jacobs recounts his subject's early calling to missionary work and, at age 18, her joining the religious Order of Loreto, which led her to teach in Calcutta for many years before acting on her true vocation of serving the sick and dying poor. His obvious knowledge of the India Mother Teresa knows and his writing style add greatly to the treatment. She is portrayed as an admirable person, but her worthiness does not overwhelm the book. Naden and Blue trace McAuliffe's Massachusetts childhood and adolescence, and relate how she applied for and was selected as the teacher in space by NASA. However, the authors are too focused on presenting her as a symbol rather than as a flesh-and-blood person. They waste space trying to explain her motivation for volunteering for the program, and the writing contains awkward transitions. Both biographies feature an abundance of quotation marks, but no sources are cited. Excellent quality black-and-white and full-color photographs are well placed and informative. There is a proliferation of series that usually share a sameness in format, information conveyed, and lack of documentation. Christa McAuliffe is no better (or worse) than other titles available. Jacobs's book is a step up the ladder. --Therese Bigelow, Wayne County Public Library System, NC