by Robert Harley Bear ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2014
A stimulating story that challenges readers to consider and appreciate the coming-of-age a young Jesus may have gone through.
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An adolescent Jesus develops his divine nature in Bear’s debut religious fiction.
The Bible offers only a glimpse of Jesus’ adolescence, but this novel presents one possible course of events for readers to mull over. Bear builds his tale around a Celtic legend about Jesus visiting the people of first-century Britain. In his version, Jesus goes to Britain with his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, and his cousin, Daniel, when his uncle travels there to start trading tin. Jesus is aware of his status as Messiah but doesn’t yet understand what that position truly means. He spends years in Britain, living among Celtic people and their druids and slowly developing his divine nature through his experiences there. Though initially lacking in compassion, he’s eager to prove himself a capable warrior, and he eventually confronts the truth that his kingdom will not be on Earth but in heaven. Learning to accept this truth and its tragic implications is difficult even for the son of God. The book also follows a mysterious “tunic cross” that features an image of adolescent Jesus. Eventually, a modern boy encounters the cross, and its connection to the past is gradually revealed throughout the book. Jesus’ story is, of course, theologically controversial. Bear addresses a major point of contention in Christian thought by speculating on how much of his divine nature Jesus understood as he grew up. Some of the images might be difficult for faithful readers to accept, especially those involving a sword-wielding or compassionless Jesus. Bear’s version of adolescent Jesus makes mistakes and has misunderstandings, but he ultimately acts within the Heavenly Father’s will. Overall, Bear successfully creates a character who technically remains sinless while still struggling with the process of growing up. With vivid side characters, an intriguing backdrop and steady pacing, the book is also a strong piece of writing. Occasional allusions to Jesus’ ministry evoke a sense of completeness, too, as when Jesus develops the idea for his parable of the prodigal son after listening to a Celtic tale and dealing with an errant tribal prince.
A stimulating story that challenges readers to consider and appreciate the coming-of-age a young Jesus may have gone through.Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0989313803
Page Count: 438
Publisher: Eirth Publishing, LLC
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by C.S. Lewis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1942
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
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by Heather Morris ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 4, 2018
The writing is merely serviceable, and one can’t help but wish the author had found a way to present her material as...
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An unlikely love story set amid the horrors of a Nazi death camp.
Based on real people and events, this debut novel follows Lale Sokolov, a young Slovakian Jew sent to Auschwitz in 1942. There, he assumes the heinous task of tattooing incoming Jewish prisoners with the dehumanizing numbers their SS captors use to identify them. When the Tätowierer, as he is called, meets fellow prisoner Gita Furman, 17, he is immediately smitten. Eventually, the attraction becomes mutual. Lale proves himself an operator, at once cagey and courageous: As the Tätowierer, he is granted special privileges and manages to smuggle food to starving prisoners. Through female prisoners who catalog the belongings confiscated from fellow inmates, Lale gains access to jewels, which he trades to a pair of local villagers for chocolate, medicine, and other items. Meanwhile, despite overwhelming odds, Lale and Gita are able to meet privately from time to time and become lovers. In 1944, just ahead of the arrival of Russian troops, Lale and Gita separately leave the concentration camp and experience harrowingly close calls. Suffice it to say they both survive. To her credit, the author doesn’t flinch from describing the depravity of the SS in Auschwitz and the unimaginable suffering of their victims—no gauzy evasions here, as in Boy in the Striped Pajamas. She also manages to raise, if not really explore, some trickier issues—the guilt of those Jews, like the tattooist, who survived by doing the Nazis’ bidding, in a sense betraying their fellow Jews; and the complicity of those non-Jews, like the Slovaks in Lale’s hometown, who failed to come to the aid of their beleaguered countrymen.
The writing is merely serviceable, and one can’t help but wish the author had found a way to present her material as nonfiction. Still, this is a powerful, gut-wrenching tale that is hard to shake off.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-279715-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
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