One of my desires is to teach my children to love God and His word and pray for their salvation, Some of the ways we do this is to have regular, family worship; our children see: that God's word is important and should be read & that we regularly pray for them both for their spiritual and physical needs and desires. Another way I do this is by reading story books based on Bible characters.
One book, I recently had the opportunity to read and review was
Esther: The Belle of Patience.
Esther: The Belle of Patience is one of the books in the series Bible Belles'
The Adventures of Rooney Cruz.
Bible Belles' The Adventures of Rooney Cruz is an original children's series that presents real heroes like never before. The series highlights five superhero women of the Bible: Hannah, Esther, Abigail, Ruth, and Deborah.
The Adventures of Rooney Cruz is written by Erin Weidemann. She is an
enthusiastic and goofy mom to two children, one of them with paws... In addition to being the CEO and founder of Bible Belles, Erin hosts the Heroes for Her podcast.
In
Esther: The Belle of Patience, Rooney is on the soccer team and often warms the bench. One of the other players on the team, Amanda, is a great player, but she's proud and only cares about herself. Mari is Rooney's personal angel (at this point, red flags were being raised, but I'll write more on that later). At the end of the game, Rooney is about to blurt out her dislike of Amanda to her coach, but the coach ends the post game pep talk. Mari takes Rooney on an adventure to see "Esther in action." The reader is thrown into the scene where the queen refuses to come before the King. Then you see Esther talking to her cousin Mordecai. This book continues to tell an abbreviate story of Esther. I don't want to give everything away, so you'll have to read the book to find how the stituation with Amanda is resolved.
Review
What I liked: Mordecai tells Esther,
Who knows? Maybe this is exactly why you were chosen to be queen. It's the perfect time for you to be here. I think you are the one who is supposed to do this.
It reminds me of Esther 4 v. 12-17 (Though the Bible uses slightly stronger language). The illustrations are bright and colorful. Plus, the author tries to apply women from the Bible to our daughters' lives today. The author also speaks about the importance of prayer:
Remember, Esther prepared for what she had to do. She spent time praying... and she waited patiently for just the right moment.
Concerns I have: I believe this book
tries to be too cutesy. There are a few things that I think are important to understand the story of Esther missing:
- Vashti's name is not mentioned.
- Esther had not made known her people because of Mordecai's command (Esther 2 v.10)
- There's no mention of who Esther's people are.
I dislike that Rooney has a "personal angel". Her "personal angel" seems more like a fairy with mystical, magical powers. In the Bible, angels not cutesy fairies, rather they are feared (see Matthew 1 v. 20, Luke 2 v. 12-13). The Bible also mentions that there are those who "have entertained angels unawares" (Hebrews 13 v. 2). And even when Peter was rescued from prison in Acts 12, he first thought he was seeing a vision, not an angel (v. 9).
At one point, Rooney prayed for Esther. I'm sorry, but Esther is dead. What happened with Esther, happened long before Christ was born, after Nebuchadnezzer king of Babylon carried the captives of Jerusalem (Esther 2 v. 6).
It was suggested that you need to "let God speak with you." If the author means read the Bible, I am 100% behind that. But if she means that God still communicates privately to individuals, red flags are raised.
I'm going to hold off on introducing this book to my daughter until she has a firmer ground on what the Bible teaches and the story of Esther. If you would like to win a copy for yourself, enter below on the Rafflecopter form.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Many thanks to Propeller Consulting, LLC for providing this prize for the giveaway. Choice of winners and opinions are 100% my own and NOT influenced by monetary compensation. I did receive a sample of the product in exchange for this review and post. Only one entrant per mailing address, per giveaway. If you have won a prize from our sponsor Propeller / FlyBy Promotions in the last 30 days, you are not eligible to win. Or if you have won the same prize on another blog, you are not eligible to win it again. Winner is subject to eligibility verification.