Psalm Basics for Catholics (Ave Maria Press)

Dr. John Bergsma is a theology professor at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. He has written many books on Scripture, but the ones I know his best for are his "Basics for Catholics" books. The first one was Bible Basics for Catholics with two follow-ups (so far) entitled New Testament Basics for Catholics and Psalm Basics for Catholics. Today, I am going to tell you about the latter work, as it his most recent one in the series. The book is divided into eleven chapters, which are as follows:

1. What's a "Psalm"? Who Wrote Them? and All That Stuff
2. How the Psalms Fit into the Story of Salvation
3. More About David
4. The Story the Psalms Tell
5. Introducing the Psalter! (Introducing the Psalter!)
6. Book I of Psalms: Weeping and Moaning
7. Book II of Psalms: Triumph and Rejoicing
8. Book III of Psalms: Descending into Grief
9. Book IV of Psalms: Waiting Around in Exile
10. Book V of Psalms: Woohoo! The Exile is Over! At Least Mostly
11. Different Ways to Read the Psalms

The book begins by telling us about who David is, what a Psalm is, why they were written, and the different types of psalms. Chapter Two then walks us through all of salvation history and the seven covenants. They are Adamic, Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, New and Eucharistic Covenant. Dr. Bergsma tells us that the psalms "flow from the Davidic Covenant, and we use them in the New Covenant because it is the restored and transformed covenant of David. We then learn more about David and get a comparison between his covenant and the Mosaic Covenant. The rest of the book is the meat of this book and gives you summaries and important psalms in each of the five sections of Psalms. The last chapter provides a nice chart, which gives you different psalms to read depending on how you are feeling at the time.

Like his other books in this series, Dr. Bergsma presents this information in an approachable method. He provides you with enough information on the subject matter, as to not overwhelm you, but also invites you to dive deeper after reading his book. The most charming parts of this series are his clever stick-figure drawings. These pictures are not only amusing, but they are also educational. I especially liked the one he made of King David looking like a rock star! These simple drawings help illustrate the main points Dr. Bergsma is trying to convey and so in a way that is helpful and not distracting. If he did a whole book of nothing but stick drawings from every famous Bible story, I would gladly buy it and love every minute of it! I hope there are more books in this series, because I highly recommend them all.

This book was provided to me for free by Ave Maria Press in exchange for an honest review.

Villages of Valeria: Landmarks (Daily Magic Games)

One of my top ten, possibly top five games of all time is Valeria Card Kingdoms (VCK). It is a fun game of dice-chucking and monster-slaying with great artwork to boot! Following up on the success of this popular game, a prequel was released called Villages of Valeria (VOV). Within this tableau-building game, you will construct buildings, cultivate resources, and attract adventurers to make your village the next capital city of Valeria. On Kickstarter currently is the first expansion to VOV entitled Landmarks. Let's talk about the basic game and what the expansion brings to it.

Setup
1. Give each player a Player Aid Card and Castle Card. The Castle Card is the beginning of your Village.
2. Pick the Starting Player, giving them the Action Selection Card and Active Player Token.
3. Form the Bank from a predetermined number of Gold Coins based on player count. Then, give each player three Gold Coins.
4. Shuffle the two decks of Adventurers and Buildings, forming a separate pile for each. Then, deal each player six Building cards.
5. Deal five Building cards face-up in the center of the table and put the deck face-down next to them.
6. Deal five Adventurer cards face-up above the Building cards and put the deck face-down next to them.
7. Each player, in turn order, then plays one Building card from their hand as a Resource at no cost. This card is slid upside down under your Castle Card.

Game Play - On your turn you will Replenish (taking all the Gold Coins on your Resource Cards and keeping them as yours) and take one of the following five actions:
1. Harvest - Draw three Building Cards into your hand, one at a time.
2. Develop - Discard one card from your hand to add one other card from your hand to your Village as a Resource.
3. Build - Pay the cost of one Building Card from your hand to add it your Village as a Building. Then, draw one card into your hand.
4. Recruit - Pay one Gold Coin to the Bank to add an Adventurer to your Village.
5. Tax - Take one Gold Coin from the Bank and draw one Building Card.

After performing your one Action, all other players (in clockwise order) may follow this action to gain a weaker version of your Action. For example, instead of drawing three cards in the Harvest, the follower draws one card. The game ends when one player's Village has a predetermined number of Adventurers and Buildings. All follow actions are completed and victory points are totaled. The person with the most points wins!

What Landmarks Adds - The expansions adds the following:
1. More Building and Adventurer cards - This part of the expansion is called "more of the same," and I mean this in a good way.
2. Architects - These cards are dealt before the game starts and provide a secret end-game goal, i.e., one point for each Holy symbol on your Buildings.
3. Landmarks - On the follow action, you may now Acquire a Landmark instead of following the main action. There are five types of Landmarks, with each requiring you discard a specific card(s). Landmarks aren't buildings that trigger the end of the game and provide a scoring bonus if you have a set of all five or if you have the most of each type of Landmark.

Review
Villages of Valeria is a tableau-building game that has elements of games like Puerto Rico or Eminent Domain with the follow mechanism. What I like best about this game is that you have to spend gold to build your Buildings. When spending this gold, you can spend them on your Resource cards or other players Resource cards that makes for an interesting decision you will build. Do I wait to build until I have the necessary Resources or do I give my opponent some gold and possibly speed up their engine? Another element I like from this game is the discard feature. When you discard cards from your hand, they don't just go into a pile to be shuffled if the deck runs out. Instead, you place them on top of the row of building cards where you choose, potentially blocking your opponent from getting cards they want. Every time I play this game, it is over before I want it to be, which makes me want to immediately play it again. This is the hallmark of a great game!

So why would I want an expansion to come along and possibly bloat a great game? Because, it actually doesn't over-complicate an already great game. The extra Building and Adventurer cards merely add more variety without introducing something new. That's a winner in my wife's book, who hates basically all expansions on principal. The Architects give you something to focus your strategy on before the game begins, which is a welcome addition when there are so many choices early on. Lastly, the Landmarks give you a follow action to perform when you can't or don't want to follow the main action. They also give you another way to score points in a game that is already tight on scoring.

This is a fairly seamless expansion to incorporate and one that I would include from the very beginning when teaching new players. If you already have the base game, this expansion is a no-brainer purchase. The only decision you'll have to make is if I want to spend $10 extra dollars on a bigger box with vibrant art on it. If you have never played the game before, there's a pledge level for you as well, whether you want a Standard or a Deluxe edition of the game...Seriously, get the Deluxe! Highly recommend this game and expansion!

Before I Was Me (Sophia Institute Press)

Before I Was Me is a hardcover children's book from Sophia Institute Press. It tells the story of a little boy asking God who he will become when he is born. God told the little boy that he had great plans for him, so the little boy assumed he would become an astronaut who ate milk and cookies. However, God asked the little boy how he would get the cookies, so the boy next decided he would become a baker. This cute story continues on of God further questioning the boy with each occupation, and the boy goes from astronaut to baker to farmer to doctor to teacher to parents. The boy realizes that parents are the most important "job," but God instructs him that the only way people become parents is with a child, so the boy decides to become a child, because children are the purest representations of God's love.

This is a very simple book with a profound message. The art and illustrations draw you into the message, but also provide a touch of humor that children and parents will both enjoy. Frank Fraser does a superb job at both writing and illustrating this book as the pictures complement the story without distracting from its message. This is a very sweet book and one that belongs on every child's bookshelf. It would make an excellent Baptism gift for first time parents or birthday gift, and I can't recommend it enough!

This book was provided to me for free by Sophia Institute Press.