Welcome to episode 22 of the Behind the Catholic Counter Podcast. I'm Ian Rutherford, President of Aquinasnandmore.com. I interview Catholic authors, publishers and manufacturers to give you the latest news about great new Catholic books and gifts. You can listen to this and past episodes at aquinasandmore.com/podcast.

This week I spoke with Vivian Dudro, editor of the Magnificat Children's books. If you are looking for First Communion gifts or gifts for any other time of year for children, you will want to listen to this interview. I'll have a special offer at the end of the show.

I hope you had a blessed Ash Wednesday. Our family went to the 7pm Mass at our parish and it was really crowded. I'm sure that a lot of the people that were there had a bit of a shock because the Mass was in Latin and most of these people don't normally go to the Latin Mass. Two of my kids slept through most of Mass and by the time it ended an hour and a half later, everyone was ready to go to bed.

You may have seen in the news last week that Family Christian Stores declared chapter 11 bankruptcy. Family Christian stores used to be called Zondervans and is the largest chain of Christian stores in the United States. Under chapter 11 bankruptcy, they are going to try and reorganize the business while keeping their creditors from suing them out of business.

I hope that you support your local Catholic bookstore because if a company like Family Christian is in financial trouble, it's likely that your local Catholic store isn't in much better shape.

On Monday Ramona Trevino, author of Redeemed by Grace, A Catholic Woman's Journey to Planned Parenthood and Back, did a live web interview about her experiences. You can listen to it at redeemedbygracebook.com. After you listen, come on back to Aquinasandmore.com to order it. We have it in stock.

Since Lent is already underway, just a quick reminder that if you were considering getting rose chasubles or black chasubles for the season, now is the time to order them.

Let's get on with our interview.

Ian: Today on the show, I'm happy to be speaking with Vivian Dudro; she is the Ignatius editor of the Magnificat Children series. Thank you for joining me Vivian.

Vivian: Oh you're welcome, thank you.

Ian: My family has been a great fan of Magnificat and Magnifikid for years. Our kids used them in church and loved them. When did Magnificat start publishing children's books to go along with the Magnifikid?

Vivian: A few years ago, Magnificat approached Ignatius Press and they've partnered with the company and France's mom which publishes a lot of books. It's sort of the Ignatius Press of France – if you want to think of it that way, and they publish a lot of beautiful children's books. Magnificat came to us and said, “Let's translate these into English and make them available in America and let's do it together” so we've been doing that ever since.

Ian: So you've come out with a whole series of several dozen...