FACING LIONS
By J R Williamson and R M Freedman
Christian Focus. 112 pages. £5.99
ISBN 978 1 781 911 532
Facing Lions is aimed at children between the ages of 5 and 11. It’s part of the ‘Risk Takers’ series and is made up of a series of short biographies of characters from the early church.
There are lots of pictures and maps. And after most chapters there’s a devotional thought and a fact file giving information about a place or a character in that chapter.
Each chapter takes about ten minutes to read out loud... and is a gripping read! The writers focus on different stories from the lives of the characters they’re writing about so, far from reading like a history book, it comes across as a thrilling adventure. I imagine the stories chosen might be more appealing to boys than to girls given that they’re all about danger and battles and so on. But my eldest daughter loves that sort of thing!
The characters chosen are not all the good guys of the early church. There’s a chapter on the heretic Arius. And there’s a chapter on Constantine which is very measured when it comes to giving a verdict on whether he was actually converted or not. The other characters are the apostle John, Polycarp, Blandina, Athanasius and Anthony.
I liked the devotional thoughts after most chapters. The writers seek to apply the lessons of the characters’ lives to their readers. And there are often helpful links to Bible passages to reinforce the lessons drawn.
If I had one criticism of the book, it’s that there are a number of Americanisms in it. For example, the word ‘Gnostics’ should apparently be pronounced ‘Nah-sticks’! But don’t let that put you off!
