My seven year old daughter spent the past year using a missal geared to children preparing to receive their First Holy Communion. It's a great missal, but it lacks the readings for Sunday Mass. I found it to be a deficiency that lead to my daughter becoming distracted and bored. She wanted to follow along with the readings, but that proved to be a little tricky for her. She was trying to use her children's missal to follow along and respond at the proper times and was using the missal that our church has in the pews for the reading. This proved to be too much for her. She got lost trying to find the proper page in the adult missal, the type was too small for her and the missal itself, was a bit too heavy for her to manage comfortably. I thought that this was a situation we simply would have to deal with until she was older. Then I discovered MagnifiKid!.
I noticed a boy a couple of years older than my daughter with a copy of MagnifiKid! at Mass a few months back. The bright colors initially caught my eye and upon further inspection, I realized it had also captured the young boy's attention. After Mass, I went home and did a search online to find out more about this MagnifiKid!. I was originally under the impression that it was some sort of comic book that was based on the Sunday readings. I was delighted when I learned that it had not only the actual readings for every Sunday (and also Holy Days of Obligation), but it also had the order of the Mass and the responses (which is wonderful when you are trying to teach your child to fully participate during Mass). Right then and there, I realized that this was what I needed for my daughter.
Once we got our first monthly installment of MagnifiKid!, I was delighted to see all that it contained. Aside from the missal portion of this 16 page full color booklet, you'll find the difficult words from the readings explained in a way that is easy for elementary school children grasp. In every booklet, there is a page dedicated to explaining the Gospel in kid-friendly terms. You'll also find stories about the Saints, quizzes, The Adventures of Brother Goodventure (a comic strip), a puzzle on the back of the booklet, as well as a section with morning and evening prayers tucked into this lovely weekly missal.
My daughter was thrilled when she got her first installment of Magnifikid!. She was a little disappointed that she needed to wait nearly six weeks to bring her first issue to Mass, but it was worth the wait. She was happy to follow along and participate fully in Mass. After Mass, she enjoys doing the puzzles and reading the articles that are contained in each weekly booklet. I highly recommend MagnifiKid! to any parent who is looking for something that will help their elementary school aged child to learn to fully appreciate and participate in Mass. With two young children in the house, I know I will continue to subscribe to MagnifiKid! for many years to come.
I wrote this review of Magnifikid! for the Tiber River Blogger Review program, created by Aquinas and More Catholic Goods. For more information and to purchase, please visit Aquinas and More Catholic Goods.
Tiber River is the first Catholic book review site started in 2000 to help you make informed decisions about Catholic book purchases.
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