Enjoy An Illustrated Rosary Book for Kids and Their Families {A Review, Giveaway and Coupon Code!!}

Don't you just love when you find a wonderful faith-based resource and have the opportunity to give one away for someone else to enjoy?

{Some links which follow are affiliate links.}

With thanks to a friend who works for Gracewatch Media, that's exactly what I am getting to do.  At the end of this post, you can enter a giveaway for an individual softcover Joyful Mysteries, Luminous Mysteries, Sorrowful Mysteries, or Glorious Mysteries Illuminated Rosary book.

First, though, I would like to share with you why I appreciate the Illuminated Rosary books so much.

A Simply Beautiful Tool for Praying the Rosary (and Doing Picture Study!) with Children

It's no secret that praying the Rosary with children can be challenging.  Attention wanes.  Strings of rosary beads morph into fidget toys instead of prayer aids. Antsiness happens.  So it is helpful to have resources that draw your children into praying the Rosary and keep them focused on each mystery prayed.

In the past, I've used everything from cookies and cupcakes, to 3-part cards, to celebrations with friends to entice my children into joining in full Rosaries with prayerful attention. Eventually, such efforts helped us get used to praying the Rosary, and we developed habits of praying one decade or a full Rosary as a car rosary, on a rosary walk, as part of the Children's Rosary prayer group movement, or as a bedtime rosary daily.

Now, you'd think that with such habits in place, praying the Rosary with my children would typically be a peaceful and reflective experience. However, I have to be honest: it can still be challenging, especially when we pray the Rosary before bedtime. There is just something about that time that makes my children lose focus and act out.

Until recently, then, our best strategy for praying the Rosary at bedtime has been to use Youtube videos with beautiful artwork in them, which kept my children's attention focused.

Unfortunately, I don't relish screen time just before bedtime - even if it is prayerful screentime, so I've been looking for another engaging strategy.

Enter The Complete Illuminated Rosary: An Illustrated Rosary Book for Kids and Their Families by Jerry Windley-Daoust at Gracewatch Media.  As soon as I saw digital samples of it, I thought, I know just what I am getting with my birthday money this year!

I was excited to order a hardcover edition of the The Complete Illuminated Rosary at a discount pre-publishing rate and have been happy to use the prayer aid with my children. 

This Rosary resource is perfect for our family at bedtime: It is large enough for each child to see when we cuddle together and allows us to pray while perusing artworks which help us with meditation and attention.

Okay, admittedly, the first time we prayed each decade of the Rosary using The Complete Illuminated Rosary, the artwork almost drew too much of my children's attention, and I found that they kept interrupting our prayers to comment on the images - what they liked, what surprised them, and more. 

Now, though, my children simply examine the artworks while remaining engaged in prayer.  Thus, The Complete Illuminated Rosary has been serving us as an effective alternative of sorts to typical rosary beads, helping my children pray bedtime Rosaries with peace.

Using the book is so simple. 

We just open to the appropriate set of mysteries for the day, then read the prayers, which are printed in an easy-on-the-eyes font while meditating with the large reprints of artworks that accompany each prayer.

These reprints vary in style,

...time period,

...and cultural lens,

...with some classic...

...and some modern...

All artworks, however, are carefully selected to be child-friendly and engaging.

There are also "prayer beads" of a sort include on the bottom of each page.

For each set of mysteries, a large circular detail of an artwork follows the Canticle of Mary, another follows the Creed and Our Father, and three small detail circles accompany the "Hail Mary"s for Faith, Hope, and Charity.

Then, each mystery begins with a brief paraphrased text from the Bible for meditation as well as a prompt to remember your intentions just above another large circular detail.

Then, the "Our Father" page, too, includes a large circular detail of an artwork, acting as a large Rosary bead.

After that, on each "Hail Mary" page, strings of roses act as beads, allowing children to count to keep track of the number of prayers prayed should they wish to do so.

The Complete Illuminated Rosary also contains pages listing art credits and ideas for how to pray the Rosary using the book.

It is truly a well-designed and lovely prayer aid that, in my children and my opinion is only missing one thing: a list of which day to pray which mystery of the Rosary.  (Sure, we should have this memorized, but do not, so we're sliding a bookmark with this information into our book.)

Same Wonderful Rosary Resource, Several Formats

The Illuminated Rosary comes in  a number of formats:

• single volume softcover

• single volume hard cover

• individual volume softcovers for each of the mysteries.

Each of these formats measure 8 1/2  x 11", and The Complete Illuminated Rosary, which I purchased in hardcover, has 368 pages.

So, if you like a lighter resource, the softcover individual format might be for you.  We like the all-in-one hardcover ourselves.

Purchase Your Own Illuminated Rosary at a Discount

If you'd like to purchase an Illuminated Rosary book, but are not sure which you would prefer, the following videos might help you decide.

You can purchase  a hardcover copy of  The Complete Illuminated Rosary on Amazon (which, at the time of this writing is 26% off with free shipping!) You can also get the Joyful Mysteries, Luminous Mysteries, Sorrowful Mysteries, or Glorious Mysteries Illuminated Rosary books and other books by author Jerry Windley-Daoust on Amazon.

Alternately, purchase an Illuminated Rosary book direct from Gracewatch Media between now and December 12 using the coupon code ROSES 25 for a 25% off discount!

Or, while supplies lasts, get an imperfect copy for 50% using the code dents&dings, for as Allison Gingras from Reconciled to You posted on Facebook earlier this month:

We all acquire a few dents and dings along the journey of life, right? Well, so did a shipment of our new Illuminated Rosary books. Grrr.
On the bright side, while these books aren’t perfect enough to sell new, they’re still in “good” condition, with minor flaws or damage: banged-up corners, dented page edges, ink smudges on the last (blank)page, imperfections in the glossy coating on the spine, etc. You can give these less-than-perfect illustrated rosary books for kids a home for 50% off the sale price using coupon code dents&dings at checkout. Quantities are limited and will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis.

BUY YOUR COPY HERE: http://bit.ly/2F9N7kY

We’re so confident that you’ll be satisfied with these books, we’ll honor our usual no-hassle return policy…we’ll send you return postage and a full refund if you don’t like them.

You can also always check the deals page at Gracewatch Media for other deals and discount codes on wonderful faith-related publications. There product line is truly fabulous for families of faith!

Enter the Giveaway!

I am excited to be able to offer one reader a softcover copy of an individual mystery in the Illuminated Rosary series using this giveaway Rafflecopter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway