Book review: Genesis People

by Sheila Deeth

★★★★★

Adorable!

If Sheila doesn’t like this word to describe her book, well, she’ll just have to get over it.

45 big-print, two-page stories introduce 45 characters from the book of Genesis, in a Dubious-Disciple-approved way. Real World, Real People, Real God, the subtitle proclaims. You’ll see what she means as soon as you start reading.

So Cain and Abel made their sacrifices. They made a fire and burned the best of the grain, and meat from the best of the animals for God. Then Cain noticed that the smoke from the meat was much thicker and smelled much nicer than the smoke from the grain. “Is that because God likes Abel more than me?” Cain asked. His mother said it was just because the fat from the meat burns hotter, but Cain wasn’t listening to her. The more Cain thought about it, the less he bothered to listen to anyone.

The book reads like one of those sunny children stories written for adults, the kind that leaves you smiling the whole way through. The back cover calls this a “middle-school reader for book-lovers of all ages, telling stories for all time.” I think that about nails it.