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Frank Zammit: The life of Pope John Paul II. Kite Group, 2014. 100 pp.
This book was published on the occasion of the canonisation of Pope John Paul II, canonised together with that other great Pope John XXIII of Vatican Council II fame.
The book is intended for children, and Rita Saliba did a very good job with her adaptation of Frank Zammit’s text.
She relates the life story of Pope John Paul II in very simple terms, with words and language that any child can read and understand.
She also maintains interest throughout the book, giving the story a certain vivid streak of light which, by the time they reach the end of the book, those young readers would have gotten to love St John Paul II.
The book tells the story of the Pope, a life densely dotted with suffering, but lived throughout with a great love for everybody, for friend and foe, including the ones who tried to harm him and even kill him.
Pope John Paul’s sufferings were terrible. He saw all his family members disintegrate one by one, until he was left alone in the world.
Hadn’t he been made of very stern stuff, I wonder whether he would have reached the stage in life when he was elected.
But he was also a man who enjoyed sports, such as skiing, mountain climbing and hiking in the Polish countryside, in the company of young people who sometimes could hardly catch up with him.
This activity helped make him tough, and gave him the necessary energy and stamina to look challenges in the face.
He was a pope who always looked on the bright side of things. His faith and love for Mary, the Mother of God, helped him survive all of life’s tribulatons which he went through.
God endowed him with an extraordinary courage by which he could take on challenges single-handedly.
He fought communism until the Soviet bloc disintegrated. He travelled far and wide, to the four corners of the world, to evangelise every country and to take Jesus Christ to every man, woman and child.
While reading the story, young readers will learn how to strenghten their trust in the Eternal Father, and how this will help them to courageously face life’s challenges.
St John Paul II was a very handsome man and a gentle human being, and his love for everyone knew no bounds.
The people loved him because he inspired them with his courage and love for all God’s creations
This is what made him so popular. This is why wherever he went millions of people, young and old, thronged the streets to welcome him as if he were a member of their family.
The people loved him because he inspired them with his charisma, with his courage and love for all God’s creations, with his trust in God and great love for Christ’s Mother, to whom he dedicated his papacy. Totus tuus, he told her.
Zammit and Saliba managed to convey all these traits in the Pope’s character in their story.
So much so that I am sure that by the time the young readers will reach the end of the book, they will be attached to him for life.
David Schembri’s cartoon-like pictures also help in this, because they depict the Pope as a fatherly, gentle, all-embracing figure.
No child can do without reading the story at least once, because John Paul II’s life was adventurous, full with active commitment, happy and very satisfying.
His was a life lived according to the will of God, and that is why it was a full life. He wrote books, poetry and drama. He worked hard for peace and for the unification of different religions.
He loved to meet children, and he was very concerned because many of them could not receive a good upbringing.
He looked upon children as “the spring of life and the foreknowledge of the future story of every nation”.
Children had a special place in his heart, because in an environment of war, poverty, hunger, injustice, violence and abuse, it is children who suffer the most.
St John Paul II was able to give himself up for others. He preached love and practised it, and his message of love will lighten the world for eternity.