The Queen and the Cats: A Story of Saint Helena

Just to show you that Hagiographa is no dead letter, Calee M. Lee takes an episode from the life of Saint Helena, and turns it into a delightful and beautiful children's book.

The Queen and the Cats: A Story of Saint Helena explores the arrival of the Empress to Cyprus with a piece of the True Cross, only to find the island so infested with poisonous snakes that people can't safely enter the churches. The story is told through the eyes of a little girl. The illustrations by Turbo Qualls are warm and expressive.

At the end of every Liturgy, my priest invokes the intercessions of "Constantine and Helen, Finders of the Life-Giving Cross." I stood this summer at the very spot they found it, now a chamber within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Both that visit and reading the delightful The Queen and the Cats have brought that history to life.