A Canticle for Leibowitz
Acceptable with guidance. Age: 16+. A Catholic review of this book for parents.
Our review
After a terrible war, monks in the desert save old books so people will not forget what they knew. Over hundreds of years the world grows strong again and then makes the same mistake. The monks keep praying and keep the faith alive. This is a classic Catholic science fiction novel for older teens and adults. The monks are heroes, the Church is the keeper of truth, and the abbot defends life against a state that offers easy death. Two things need a parent's guidance. The euthanasia scenes are painful and end in violence. Near the end a strange woman gives the abbot Communion and seems free of original sin, which is fiction and not Catholic teaching. The shown age is 16, set by Lumen's own reading age, since Common Sense Media and the publisher give none.
For parents
Not a read-aloud. Independent reading from sixteen. This one age is Lumen's, because no Common Sense or publisher age was found. Know before you hand it over: people are killed, nuclear war destroys cities, and a mother and baby face a state suicide camp. Ask: why do the monks save books they cannot understand? Why does Abbot Zerchi refuse euthanasia even for great suffering? Is he right to say suffering borne in faith has meaning? Make sure a teen hears the plain teaching: only Mary was preserved from original sin from her conception (Catechism 491), and every human life is God's to give and take.