ALLTA
Don't enter the wilderness unread.
ALLTA (from the Gaelic for “wild”) is a collection of carefully designed and beautifully illustrated books in premium, hardbound editions, to inspire wonder in the hearts and minds of young readers.
These books are not tame. But they are good. They have the power to nourish the imagination and gird it with strength. These books educate for virtue.
ALLTA titles offer what Chesterton called the clue to the garden. Without this clue, the garden is an uninspiring place; with the clue, it is fascinating; it has a meaning that can be discovered, understood, and loved.
That’s a reason for reading. That’s the reason for ALLTA.
The Saintmaker’s Christmas Eve
Christmas 1809: Roberto Castillo delivers to the village of San Cristóbal a statue of their patron—St. Christopher bearing on his shoulder the holy Christ Child. Upon his return home, Roberto greets his brother, not with their payment, but with strange, miraculous tidings…
Good King Wenceslas
Young Vojak is freed from slavery and given the Christian name of Stephen. In faithful service to the king, Stephen must be ready at each dangerous moment and every dramatic turn to follow in the footsteps of his master, good King Wenceslas…
The Trumpeter of Krakow
From the tower of Krakow’s Church of Our Lady Mary, a trumpet sounds each hour. More than a timekeeper, the trumpeter is also a vigilant guardian, watching for enemies, riots, and fires—anything that might threaten the safety of the city…
Black Fox of Lorne
“Now we shall go a-Viking.” With these fateful words, Harald Redbeard determines a new course of life for his twin sons. No longer are they children, working and playing in their homeland of Norway; now, but thirteen years of age, they are men: they shall go a-Viking…
The True Meaning of Christmas
Offering fitting Yuletide reading for the whole family, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen meditates upon the Incarnation and Nativity of Jesus Christ, Son of the Most High, born in a lowly stable in Bethlehem, and the significance it bears and salvation it extends to all…
To Irrigate Deserts
“The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.” (C. S. Lewis)
The first task of cultivating our imagination is the preparation of the soil so that it can sustain life. In a word, the irrigation of the desert.
And why? Because a desert is what our imagination is. We do not arrive in this world with knowledge or images or narratives already installed; only once we begin living, feeling, seeing and hearing, out here in the real world, do we begin to accumulate those treasures…
