Simonetta Carr's little illustrated biography of Martin Luther
I recently saw that this book was being proposed for review. Now some time ago I read and reviewed Simonetta Carr's little biography of Renée de France - see here - and really liked the book. So I was keen to give her treatment of Luther the once-over. However:
1) it's a book for younger readers (no problem - I was younger in the past)
2) it was being sent out in print to reviewers in the USA.
But hey, if ya don' ask ya don' git, and so it was that I received by email the first pages of the book in pdf format - just enough to get to see the writing style, a good look at the type of illustration and the approach that the author adopts.
And it's charming. It didn't feel like an infantile read, so I'd suggest younger teens would be a perfect target readership, as well as a suitable coffee-table book to leave around for folk to pick up and leaf through quickly. The sample I got went as far as Luther's studies in law and the thunderstorm experience, so I'm not able to comment much on how the great conflicts and upheavals are dealt with. However, from the map supplied and the treatment of plague I would expect a very sensible approach, serious and weighty but not heavy.
I think the adult reader would appreciate being reminded of some things, informed of others and shown again the remarkable work of God that the Reformation represents.
So often we are like republicans, we praise little men who did things that they thought were little things and - like a cigarette end thrown from a moving car can set a whole forest ablaze, they, too, saw their little spark light flames that would engulf the whole world and never extinguish. Little men who did little things and saw them fanned to flame by the Spirit of the Everlasting God.
And Joel Beeke likes it, too, see!
1) it's a book for younger readers (no problem - I was younger in the past)
2) it was being sent out in print to reviewers in the USA.
But hey, if ya don' ask ya don' git, and so it was that I received by email the first pages of the book in pdf format - just enough to get to see the writing style, a good look at the type of illustration and the approach that the author adopts.
And it's charming. It didn't feel like an infantile read, so I'd suggest younger teens would be a perfect target readership, as well as a suitable coffee-table book to leave around for folk to pick up and leaf through quickly. The sample I got went as far as Luther's studies in law and the thunderstorm experience, so I'm not able to comment much on how the great conflicts and upheavals are dealt with. However, from the map supplied and the treatment of plague I would expect a very sensible approach, serious and weighty but not heavy.
I think the adult reader would appreciate being reminded of some things, informed of others and shown again the remarkable work of God that the Reformation represents.
So often we are like republicans, we praise little men who did things that they thought were little things and - like a cigarette end thrown from a moving car can set a whole forest ablaze, they, too, saw their little spark light flames that would engulf the whole world and never extinguish. Little men who did little things and saw them fanned to flame by the Spirit of the Everlasting God.
And Joel Beeke likes it, too, see!
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