IT'S TIME FOR EASTER

Elizabeth Sechrist's Christmas Everywhere and It's Time for Christmas have made permanent places as cornupcopias full of all the things one wants to find out about Christmas. Now, in collaboration with Miss Woolsey, she is doing the same thing with Easter and the Lenten period of preparation. She starts with the Easter story as told by the evangelists. She links theevents- the dating- the sources of some of the customs with Jewish tradition, and traces the steps by which they diverged, and the determination of the date was made. She takes the key days of the Christian calendar from Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday through Lent to the days of the Holy Week, Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter itself. The sources of the names and the legends and the customs- and their varied observance in all parts of the Christian world; the foods associated with different days; the significance of the Easter rabbit as a symbol of the moon, and of the Easter baskets. An unusual amount of space is devoted to the important musical compositions related to this season- The Messiah, St. Matthew Passion, Parsifal, The Palms, the hymns and carols, the story of the Holy Grail , the stories and poems based on the theme. All in all, a useful compendium of material for libraries, church schools, school libraries.