Esther by Susan Martins Miller, illustrated by Al Bohl (1992) from the Young Reader’s Christian Library
This is the second book from my extensive library of mini-classics which I’ve read to my children, and they enjoyed it for their own reasons. My 6-year-old son wanted to see if he could find the names “Esther” or “Mordecai” on every page, and my 4-year-old daughter wanted to always hear anything that had to do with “Tween” Esther—which means that, for those chapters dealing solely with Haman or Mordecai, she was totally uninterested. Because they’re so young and not yet quite enthralled by chapter books, we only ended up reading a few pages per night. But, if I read the books like I ought—with passion and emotion and changing character voices and all—then I could keep their attention well enough to move the story along. We were able to finish these 220 pages in a little over a month of bedtime reading.
We were drawn to Esther’s story for two reasons: first, my daughter loves princesses; and, second, we parents had just heard an amazing series of character studies contrasting Esther to Haman. We had learned so much about character from that series that I wanted to pass on little anecdotes of courage and faithfulness to my own children. I found that we were able to always find a poignant lesson over which to close in prayer, and I now realize that it’s these little moments of worldview-construction that will prove invaluable to their faith later on.
The writing in this little book was well-segmented, though occasionally the word-choices were too far above my kids’ heads. I had to scramble for synonyms as I read, trying not to break the pace of the story and lose their interest unnecessarily.
The artwork captured the most important scenes or lines from each page and were certainly what kept my kids’ attentions the most. I’m no artist, but I bet it’s likely not easy to maintain a consistent beauty through over a hundred monochromatic illustrations. I found that—like with the heroine in Pocahontas—Esther’s beauty waned throughout the book. Clearly the illustrator used a model off which to base his drawings, and likely children reading the book will neither notice nor care, but when I as an adult reader caught glimpses of a homely Queen Esther, my own imagination of her beauty faltered a bit. I guess this only goes to show that some stories (or at least characters, like Esther, the Queen of Sheba, or Jesus Christ Himself) are best left un-illustrated. Despite these minor drawbacks, we all enjoyed the book and found it to be an accurate representation of the historical account from that great book of the Bible.
©2017 E.T.