The Light of the World

We came across The Light of the World at the library. Written by Katherine Paterson (Bridge to Terabithia), this book is unique among those I’ve seen that tell the New Testament story to children. I recommend it, and wonder if there are other books out there that belong in the same category.

As a parent, I’ve struggled to find a children’s version of the Bible that neither cartoonizes the grandeur of the story, nor attempts language and concepts children are too young to understand. (Mine are 6 and 4.) This book is not a Bible, but an attempt to gather some of the important strands of Jesus’s life and ministry around the motif of light from Genesis to Redemption. It’s the first book I’ve come upon that’s organized poetically like this. I find it effective and beautiful.

I’ve noticed in reading the Bible to my children that the New Testament isn’t as interesting to them. There’s so much drama in the Old Testament stories, so much action, that they want to hear those stories over and over. But the New Testament, which is the climax of the story, contains a very different concept of heroism than giant-killing. People don’t march across parted seas, or get cast into fiery furnaces, or survive in the belly of a giant fish.

This story engaged them. Instead of proceeding through a list of individual incidents and miracles, it connects a few biblical examples of God sending light into a dark world, with Jesus as the culmination. I love the book’s respect for children, who readily pick up on the symbolic aspects of light, and can grasp abstractions that are not weighed down by excessive information or dogma. ”When Jesus died,” the book explains simply, “darkness covered the earth. The light of the world had gone out.” My daughter turned to me and said, her eyes animated, “It was like a cord snapped.” She closed her eyes and laid her head back, thinking about it. The emphasis isn’t on the brutality of the physical death, but on its significance, and it provides an imaginative category for thinking about it. Light is used in several senses in the story, the most compelling one being Jesus as the light that cannot be overcome.

The pictures by French illustrator Francois Roca have a certain charm of light and color, but they’re stylized vignettes, a bit iconographic for my taste. The angel at the door of the empty tomb, for instance, doesn’t look happy. That’s my least favorite feature! But it’s still a beautiful book with full page illustrations, and text on the facing pages bordered with delicate artwork.

I didn’t know Katherine Paterson was a missionary in Japan for several years before beginning her work as a writer. ”The challenge for those of us who care about our faith and about a hurting world,” she writes, “is to tell stories which will carry the words of grace and hope in their bones and sinews and not wear them like fancy dress.” This book is an artistic effort that rises to the challenge. And when we’re a bit further down the road, this one, which I just discovered at her website, looks promising, too.