Couple publishing third book in children's series about the Catholic faith

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - July 30, 2018 - PRLog -- When your children have questions about their faith, wouldn't it be wonderful to put them in a time-machine and take them back to the time of Jesus to answer their inquiries?

Nashville residents Mike and Sarah Zimmerman are doing that in their Little Catholic Clubhouse book series, which they began publishing last year. They are publishing their third book in the series this month: Annunciation. With the endorsement of the Nashville Bishop, the late Most Rev. David Choby, they have published two books, selling over 500 copies and gaining more than 1600 followers on Facebook and to their blog, where readers can learn more about the characters in the series. All without a major publishing house behind them.

The books follow a group of school-aged children as they come across questions about their Catholic faith in daily life. With the help of a spiritual guide priest and a super computer, they travel back in time to learn answers to questions such as what is sacrifice and what is the true meaning of Christmas. The characters are transported to the Last Supper and to a stable in Bethlehem.

"We had books about the Catholic faith, but nothing that was equal to what the kids were reading and seeing these days online, on TV and in books," said Sarah Zimmerman, who grew up Catholic and worked as a vet tech before starting her family.

Sarah originally wrote a story just for her three children. Her husband Mike, who converted to Catholicism, studied at Vanderbilt Divinity School and The Maryvale Institute earning MA's in Theology and Catholic Pastoral Education, was the perfect co-author. The theology teacher and youth director at Our Lady of the Lake helped craft the books to be theologically correct while Sarah brought the stories to life with her illustrations.

"We started this just to teach our kids and tell them a story," Mike said, adding that they printed the first copy for their family at FedEx. Their oldest son, Jonah, wanted to take the book to school and that's when they began to see the broader appeal of their stories.

"Other people liked the story, so we made more copies for friends and family," Sarah said. That grew into self-publishing the book, creating a website (https://littlecatholicclubhouse.com), complete with back stories and bios on each of the characters, a Facebook page for fans and a second book. Now they are working on their third book and selling the books on Etsy, Amazon, barnesandnoble.com (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/little-catholic-clubhous...), and in a few church gift stores and on their own website. The books are distributed by Spiritus.

"Right now, it is just fun for us, but we do hope that it can get out into the world and evangelize," Sarah said, adding that they have so many ideas for growth including continuing a Lenten game they created this past year, possibly creating character dolls and, of course, many more books. But the real goal is more altruistic.

"We just want to make the world a better place and raise our kids Catholic and have them be proud to be Catholic," Sarah said.