Saint Ia Rides a Leaf

I finally received the cutest little board book! I was so excited to read it, especially since it’s written and illustrated by two amazing women who I am blessed to know, Melinda Johnson and Kristina Tartara! We love all of Melinda's books, and Kristi's illustrations are sweet, beautiful, and captivating! St. Ia was a missionary from Ireland to England, and there is a town and church named after her in Cornwall! Both my girls loved the book, but my 4 yr old especially loved it and kept looking at the adorable pages over and over again and “reading” it to herself. Their favorite part was when the leaf grew bigger. I also love the fact that an original song has been composed for the book, and the sheet music is available for download on the SVS Press website. I hope this duo teams up for more book collaborations!

I'm happy to review the board book, St Ia Rides a Leaf, written by Melinda Johnson.
St. Ia has an incredible adventure of faith that is just perfect for sharing with young Christian minds!
The illustrations by Kristina Tartara are fun and engaging with cute little sea creatures that readers can search for on every page.
I am definitely happy to have found this great little children's book and I sincerely hope Melinda Johnson is planning to write many more like them. It's a perfect way for me to start a collection for my future grandchildren!

First of all I want to start off and say how exciting it was to read Saint Ia Rides a Leaf. The story was so captivating. I love to learn about other Orhodox Saints that are not the common ones. The story was light for a younger child and yet kept the attention of my 8 year old son. He was actually engaged and was asking questions with each page read. He was so surprised with how the leaf grew. My 8 year old asked me to find more information about Saint Ia. Now the illustrations were fascinating! They were bright and enduring. I love when board books have full page color illustrations. I have a baby coming in May and I cannot wait to read this book to him or her.
My son also wanted to say a few things about this book. He said his opinion is that: when her friends left without her he couldn’t believe that they forgot her. He enjoyed the colors of the illustrations and the actual story of Saint Ia.

First of all, I want to share how excited I am to have a board book about a female saint! I have 6 daughters, so it’s nice to have female examples for them. I also appreciate that this book is about a saint I have never heard of. It’s exciting to learn about new Saints and hear more examples of living the Faith. I decided to test this book out on my youngest daughter, she just turned 5. I let her know ahead of time that she was going to have to give her review as well. The pictures are very inviting and beautifully designed. I really enjoyed how the sentence structure was not too complicated. I think this would be a good read for much younger children as well. The pages did not contain too many words, so my 5 year old easily kept her attention to the story. We were able to talk and ask questions throughout the story, building anticipation and enhancing understanding. I also enjoyed how this book covered the topic of being a missionary, we were able to talk after reading the book about what being a missionary is and why they are important. When I asked my daughter what she thought of the book she responded with a solid “Good!” and said she liked the part about the leaf growing. This is definitely a book that I will be recommending to friends and even giving to my goddaughters as gifts. This is a great story that all children will enjoy!
I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.