justin gerard Archives | Little Book, Big Story

January 13, 2017 / 3 Comments

Wingfeather Tales

There’s a spot on our porch I check every time I come home—to the left of the door, on the girls’ stripey chair. If I’m going to get a package, that’s where it will be, and if there is a package there, then it is probably full of books. There have been a lot of packages there lately, because, as I write, it’s nearly Christmas and I loathe going to stores (I drank the online shopping Kool-Aid early and never looked back).

But a few weeks ago, I found a package on the stripey chair that said not “Amazon Fulfillment Center” on the return address but “The Rabbit Room,” and I knew that something very, very good was about to happen to me.

I was right. Stickers and posters and patches happened, as well as a signed paperback copy of The Warden and the Wolf King. Happy little girls with their hands full of stickers and posters and patches happened. But I dug into the package looking for one thing and one thing only: Wingfeather Tales.

When Andrew Peterson ran his most recent Kickstarter campaign, one of the stretch goals was this collection of short stories set in Anniera, but written by a handful of my favorite authors and illustrators (if you’ve read anything by them, then they’re probably your favorites, too): N. D. Wilson, Jennifer Trafton, John Hendrix, Justin Gerard, Jonathan Rogers, to name a few.

That, I thought, looking at the line-up, is going to be awesome. But even with “awesome” as my starting point, I still completely underestimated Wingfeather Tales.

The Wingfeather Saga & Wingfeather Tales | Little Book, Big Story

The stories the authors turned out differ wildly in tone and style: some are comic, some epic, one is a narrative poem, one is a novella so devastating that I still can’t think about it without feeling an uncomfortable tightness in my throat. At least two of the stories cleverly link Anniera up with the worlds of other beloved books; one tells a story we’ve all been wanting to hear. The authors clearly enjoyed being set loose in the world of the Wingfeather Saga.

I think I expected this book to be a fun sort of honorary member of the series, maybe a collection of extra material that would be pleasant to read, if not as good as the saga itself—sort of what Chronicles of Avonlea is to the Anne of Green Gables series. But Wingfeather Tales is its own beautiful contribution to the Wingfeather canon, so vivid and enjoyable that I can’t imagine rereading the full saga without re-reading the Tales, too. And that is beyond awesome.

Wingfeather Tales
Ed. Andrew Peterson (2016)

August 28, 2015 / 0 Comments

The Prince’s Poison Cup

My daughter once told me, “When I’m at a friend’s house, I go straight for the books.” I loved this, because I do that, too: when invited to a friend’s house for the first time, I gravitate toward the bookshelf (especially if they have bookshelves, plural), and scan the spines for familiar titles.

I know that friendship will come easily when I see certain books lining their shelves, or better yet, when this new friend follows me to the bookshelf, leans over my shoulder and says, “You like that one? Then you have to read this.” Before I know it, my arms are full of new books.

I met The Prince’s Poison Cup at a just such a new friend’s house. As we chatted, I flipped it open carelessly and found myself confronted with an illustration so beautiful that it moved me to tears at once: a father, a king, holding his son in the deepest of embraces, both of them radiant with light.

The Prince's Poison Cup | Little Book, Big Story

I didn’t care what the book was about—we needed our very own copy. And when we did get our copy, I found that it was an allegory of quality and depth, written around the verse, “Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?” (John 18:11b). R. C. Sproul puts his Bible knowledge to good use as he weaves the gospel through this story of a prince who rescued his Father’s people by . . . but wait. I won’t give the story away.

I will tell you that Justin Gerard’s illustrations do more than display the story—they interact with it, advancing the plot in beautiful double spreads. This is a story that will appeal to heroic little boys, but that has also captured the hearts of my girly girls, perhaps because it is full of the elements of the Best Story Ever (you know the one).

The Prince’s Poison Cup
R. C. Sproul, Justin Gerard (2008)

Today’s summer rerun first appeared on June 14, 2013.

July 24, 2015 / 10 Comments

The Wingfeather Saga

The trouble with reviewing only books that I like is that I have to find one hundred clever ways to say, “I liked this book.” I try to throw out the adjectives—beautiful! amazing! wonderful!—and do my best to explain what I liked about a book and why you might like it, too.

But I couldn’t do that here. My first thought when I sat down to write was THESE BOOKS ARE AMAZING!

For three drafts, I couldn’t get past it. Every time I opened this post, that sentence—These books are amazing—beat the rest of the English language out of my head. Andrew Peterson has written exactly the sort of story I was longing for when I wrote about the difficulty of crafting Christian characters, and he has done it in a way that reminds me fondly of Lemony Snicket, Harry Potter, and Narnia all at once.

Peterson’s sense of timing is just right, his use of language is a beautiful thing to behold, and his jokes are spot on. I liked Andrew Peterson immediately for having the sense to throw in that extra “dark” in the title of the first book, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. Without it, the title would be bland. With it, it was perfect. (The title of the second book—North! Or Be Eaten—is even better.)

The Wingfeather Saga, by Andrew Peterson | Little Book, Big Story

Peterson’s world of Aerwiar is full of wonders—new hollows, and deeps and cities to discover with each story—but I can’t tell you much about the adventures Janner, Tink, and Leeli Igiby have in it without spoiling major plot points. But oh, how I want to! I wanted badly to discuss these books with someone as I read, but I could think of only one other person I knew who had read them—he is ten and was out of town—so I was left to laugh, cry, and rejoice alone.

(Mitch is reading them now, so that shall soon be remedied.)

These books are exactly what I think art by Christians ought to be: beautiful and complex, joyful but brutally sad at times, and so well-crafted that they faithfully reflect the work of our Creator. They are not safe or neatly allegorical. They do not close with a sterile moral. But while Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga tells a story framed in a Christian worldview, that story is not told only to Christians. It is a great story by any standards that points, in the right places, toward the Gospel.

In the words of Oskar Reteep (quoting Shank Po), I exhort you: “Get thee busy.” You have books to read.

The Wingfeather Saga
Andrew Peterson (2008-2014)

June 27, 2014 / 0 Comments

The Lightlings

If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time at all, you’ve heard about R. C. Sproul’s picture books. You know that he writes parables for children that encapsulate the gospel and that he favors the voice of a grandparent talking to a child. His stories usually go like this:

1. Child has problem.

2. Grandpa comes for dinner, listens to child’s problem; responds with bewitching phrase, like, “I think I might know a story about that.”

3. Child goes wide-eyed, listens in wonder.

4. Grandpa tells story, and it is the gospel, every time.

Like Sproul’s other books, The Prince’s Poison Cup and The Donkey Who Carried a King, The Lightlings gives families an idea of how the Gospel appears in even the smallest of challenges. The story has to do with a fear of the dark, but it also has to do with the God who created the light and the dark and who reached into the dark to rescue the people that He loved. It works on two levels at once so skillfully that we have given this book to a friend whose son was afraid of the dark and heard later that it was, in fact, helpful for him at bedtime, because it reminded him both that God was greater than his fears and that he wasn’t alone in being afraid of the dark.

But Sproul does more than tell a good story: at the back of each book is a catechism-style appendix that answers the many questions that children might have about the story with verses straight from Scripture. If it’s helpful for families to see that the Gospel can meet them in the daily business of life, it’s equally helpful to know that the Bible can give satisfying answers to our questions.

Lastly, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Justin Gerard’s illustrations. To put it simply, they glow: he uses light and dark skillfully to expand the tale of The King of Light and his subjects, and contains a quality that I’ll call, for lack of a less cliche description, “breath-taking.” In his work, I’m learning, there’s typically one picture per book that makes me say softly, “Wow.” I don’t know how he does it.

The Lightlings
R. C. Sproul, Justin Gerard (2006)

Tag: justin gerard (page 1 of 1)

Wingfeather Tales

The Prince’s Poison Cup

The Wingfeather Saga

The Lightlings

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