Pauline Books and Media has just published another book in their series “Friends with the Saints.” It’s called, “Search for the Hidden Garden” and your young daughter is going to love it.

This time, the author, Sherry Weaver Smith, takes us back to late 19th century France where we meet 10 year old Charlotte. Charlotte absolutely cannot pass by any adventure. So when she discovers in the school library a map of a mysterious garden for children, she slips the map into her pocket and begins exploring.

There are just a few problems with Charlotte’s plan. The map is located on someone else’s private property; in fact, it’s located on the property of her least favorite schoolmate. And oh yeah, the adults want to tear it down.

The other problem? That schoolmate, Louise. She’s so irritating to Charlotte!

Adventures are never easy, so Charlotte enlists the help of the local school girl, Therese.  Therese is 5 years older than Charlotte and has plans to enter the convent just as soon as they will let her.  Yes. It’s that Therese. Therese of Lisieux.  Therese has quite a bit to teach Charlotte, mostly about the importance of doing the little small things, and to do them to love.

I said it before in my review of The Wolfe and the Shield, and I’ll say it again here.  I love that the books in this series show how our friends in heaven actually help us. Stories of the saints lives are wonderful. But for this age (7-10), I like the simple and straight forward means the saint is actually helping these children.

This book lacked a bit of editing in the first few pages and I’ll confess, I got a little nervous. But it worked itself out by a few pages in. What’s more, in the middle of the book I experienced that “I have to keep reading to see what happens next” moment. So, yeah. Good stuff here.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from my friends at Pauline Books and Media in the hopes of a (favorable) review. Complimentary books are not necessarily good books, though; the opinions in this review are my own.