Books with author James Christopher Carroll

It's midnight - a special time of night, when anything can happen. Wide awake long past his bedtime, a young boy slips outside his house to join some special friends in a nighttime jubilation. Complete with howls and whoops, they joyously celebrate the mystery and magic of the night, basking in the glow of the moonlight. They howled at the moon, they howled at life, and they howled with all things in the night. But their revelry comes to a halt when the moon is caught in the branches of a tree. Is anyone brave enough to climb the tree and save the moon? Gorgeous atmospheric paintings lure readers of all ages into believing that anything can happen - at midnight! J. (Jim) Carroll's work has been displayed around the world, including at the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of Science & Technology in Milan and at the United Nations in NYC. He has been an instructor at the School of Visual Arts and at the Massachusetts Museum of Modern Art. His work has also been featured in Zoom, HOW, PRINT and Communication Arts magazines. The Boy and the Moon is his first children's book.

National headlines regularly herald the decline of Christianity in the United States, citing historically low levels of confidence in organized religion, drops in church attendance, church closures, and the dramatic rise of the "Nones." Scarcely heard are stories from the thousands of new churches and new forms of church that are springing up each year across the country. In this book, Christopher James attends carefully to stories of ecclesial innovation taking place in Seattle, Washington-a city on the leading edge of trends shaping the nation as a whole. James's study of the new churches founded in this "post-Christian" city offers both theological reflection and pragmatic advice. After an in-depth survey- and -interview-based analysis of the different models of church-planting he encountered, James identifies five threads of practical wisdom: 1) embracing local identity and mission, 2) cultivating embodied, experiential, everyday spirituality, 3) engaging community life as means of witness and formation, 4) prioritizing hospitality as a cornerstone practice, and 5) discovering ecclesial vitality in a diverse ecclesial ecology. Stimulating, encouraging, and stereotype-shattering, this book invites readers to reconsider the narrative that portrays these first decades of the twenty-first century as a period of ecclesial death and decline, and to view our time instead as a hope-filled season of ecclesial renewal and rebirth.

It's midnight - a special time of night, when anything can happen. Wide awake long past his bedtime, a young boy slips outside his house to join some special friends in a nighttime jubilation. Complete with howls and whoops, they joyously celebrate the mystery and magic of the night, basking in the glow of the moonlight. They howled at the moon, they howled at life, and they howled with all things in the night. But their revelry comes to a halt when the moon is caught in the branches of a tree. Is anyone brave enough to climb the tree and save the moon? Gorgeous atmospheric paintings lure readers of all ages into believing that anything can happen - at midnight! J. (Jim) Carroll's work has been displayed around the world, including at the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of Science & Technology in Milan and at the United Nations in NYC. He has been an instructor at the School of Visual Arts and at the Massachusetts Museum of Modern Art. His work has also been featured in Zoom, HOW, PRINT and Communication Arts magazines. The Boy and the Moon is his first children's book.

In a bold and moving book that is sure to spark heated debate, the novelist and cultural critic James Carroll maps the profoundly troubling two-thousand-year course of the Church’s battle against Judaism and faces the crisis of faith it has provoked in his own life as a Catholic. More than a chronicle of religion, this dark history is the central tragedy of Western civilization, its fault lines reaching deep into our culture. The Church’s failure to protest the Holocaust — the infamous “silence” of Pius XII — is only part of the story: the death camps, Carroll shows, are the culmination of a long, entrenched tradition of anti-Judaism. From Gospel accounts of the death of Jesus on the cross, to Constantine’s transformation of the cross into a sword, to the rise of blood libels, scapegoating, and modern anti-Semitism, Carroll reconstructs the dramatic story of the Church’s conflict not only with Jews but with itself. Yet in tracing the arc of this narrative, he implicitly affirms that it did not necessarily have to be so. There were roads not taken, heroes forgotten; new roads can be taken yet. Demanding that the Church finally face this past in full, Carroll calls for a fundamental rethinking of the deepest questions of Christian faith. Only then can Christians, Jews, and all who carry the burden of this history begin to forge a new future. Drawing on his well-known talents as a storyteller and memoirist, and weaving historical research through an intensely personal examination of conscience, Carroll has created a work of singular power and urgency. CONSTANTINE'S SWORD is a brave and affecting reckoning with difficult truths that will touch every reader.

When a soldier has to leave his or her family for extended service, it's an emotional time for all involved. It can be especially confusing and upsetting for children, who long for the comfort and security of a parent's presence. Papa's Backpack honors the bond between a parent/soldier and a child, and acknowledges the difficult and emotional process of separation during deployment. A young bear cub dreams of accompanying Papa when he leaves on a mission, wanting to stay close to provide comfort and moral support, ultimately overcoming adversity together.

In a bold and moving book that is sure to spark heated debate, the novelist and cultural critic James Carroll maps the profoundly troubling two-thousand-year course of the Church’s battle against Judaism and faces the crisis of faith it has provoked in his own life as a Catholic. More than a chronicle of religion, this dark history is the central tragedy of Western civilization, its fault lines reaching deep into our culture. The Church’s failure to protest the Holocaust — the infamous “silence” of Pius XII — is only part of the story: the death camps, Carroll shows, are the culmination of a long, entrenched tradition of anti-Judaism. From Gospel accounts of the death of Jesus on the cross, to Constantine’s transformation of the cross into a sword, to the rise of blood libels, scapegoating, and modern anti-Semitism, Carroll reconstructs the dramatic story of the Church’s conflict not only with Jews but with itself. Yet in tracing the arc of this narrative, he implicitly affirms that it did not necessarily have to be so. There were roads not taken, heroes forgotten; new roads can be taken yet. Demanding that the Church finally face this past in full, Carroll calls for a fundamental rethinking of the deepest questions of Christian faith. Only then can Christians, Jews, and all who carry the burden of this history begin to forge a new future. Drawing on his well-known talents as a storyteller and memoirist, and weaving historical research through an intensely personal examination of conscience, Carroll has created a work of singular power and urgency. CONSTANTINE'S SWORD is a brave and affecting reckoning with difficult truths that will touch every reader.

From National Book Award-winning writer James Carroll comes a novel of the timeless love story of Peter Abelard and Héloïse, and its impact on a modern priest and a Holocaust survivor seeking sanctuary in Manhattan.Father Michael Kavanagh is shocked when he sees a friend from his seminary days at the altar of his humble parish in upper Manhattan—a friend who was forced to leave under scandalous circumstances. Compelled to reconsider the past, Father Kavanagh wanders into the medieval haven of the Cloisters and stumbles into a conversation with a lovely and intriguing docent, Rachel Vedette.Having survived the Holocaust and escaped to America, Rachel remains obsessed with her late father’s greatest scholarly achievement: a study demonstrating the relationship between the famously discredited monk Peter Abelard and Jewish scholars. Feeling an odd connection with Father Kavanagh, Rachel shares with him the work that cost her father his life.At the center of these interrelated stories is the classic romance between the great philosopher Abelard and his intellectual equal, Héloïse. For Rachel, Abelard is the key to understanding her people’s place in history. And for Father Kavanagh, the controversial theologian may be a doorway to understanding the life he himself might have had outside the Church.

When a soldier has to leave his or her family for extended service, it's an emotional time for all involved. It can be especially confusing and upsetting for children, who long for the comfort and security of a parent's presence. Papa's Backpack honors the bond between a parent/soldier and a child, and acknowledges the difficult and emotional process of separation during deployment. A young bear cub dreams of accompanying Papa when he leaves on a mission, wanting to stay close to provide comfort and moral support, ultimately overcoming adversity together.

When her spendthrift father goes into debt after buying a sheep and the inner workings of a clock, fifteen-year-old Annie Steele is sent to work in the town's new wool mill to help support her family. Her job is full of risk -- especially after she and her friend Robert discover that the mill's cruel overseer is stealing bags of wool and decide to do something about it.Annie longs for the chance to continue her schooling and become a teacher. Will she ever be able to leave the mill?An American Bookseller Pick of the Lists