[I received electronic review copies of both of these books from Netgalley and Lion Children’s Books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.]
Summaries
Albert and the Good Sister: A retelling of the Bible story of baby Moses and his sister Miriam. Albert the mouse tells the story which he heard from an older family member who was there. He tells the story to a little mouse who is the youngest in her family and is wondering if she will ever be “any use.” Miriam teaches that looking out for someone else is an important job and you don’t have to be big/older to do it.
Albert and the Flour Sack: A retelling of the Bible story of Eljiah and the woman who is running out of oil and flour to feed her family. Again, Albert tells a story he has heard from an older family member who was a witness to the story. Albert tells the story to two mice who have been in the farmer’s flour sack. The message of the Elijah story is that God took care of the family and never let them go hungry.
Review
The stories are cute and faithful to the Bible text. The illustrations are simple and sweet. The Miriam story sets her up as the role model and focus of the story. The Elijah story is really God’s story, which I preferred. The whole Bible is God’s story, and I liked that the flour story reflected that. If these were just the Bible retelling, without the “lesson” portion, I would rate them higher.
But the stories are set up to teach a lesson. It’s how they are structured from the first page. Albert is trying to teach the young mice something with each Bible story. This is where the books hit a road bump for me. I thought the lessons were unclear, especially the flour story.
In the Miriam story, the message is either (a) caring for others is an important job for everyone or (b) little kids can do important things, too – or even (c) some combination of the two. It wasn’t really clear. But a parent reading the story to a child could make that a little more clear as they read together.
In the Elijah story, the message is either (a) God will take care of you or (b) don’t steal/waste flour. This was especially problematic for me. The little mice are playing in the farmer’s flour and this story is told to tell them to stay out of it. I’m not sure how that ties into a story about how God provided for this family in a way that their little bit of flour and oil didn’t run out. Maybe the connection is supposed to be the flour, but that is a loose connection to me.
