Eve and Her Sisters: Women of the Old Testament

McDonough, Yona Zeldis; Zeldis, Malcah

ISBN 10: 0688125131 ISBN 13: 9780688125134

Publisher: Greenwillow, 1994

Vivid folk-art paintings and biblical vignettes profile fourteen extraordinary women of the Old Testament, including Sarah, Rachel, Ruth, Esther, and Deborah.

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From School Library Journal:

Kindergarten-Grade 2-Biblical women are mostly anonymous appendages to important males, so a large picture book identifying 14 of them by name (the Queen of Sheba still has only a title) is a worthwhile project. Thus, the shortcomings of this volume are particularly disappointing. Each of the women featured is alloted an average of 100 words: a dictionary entry, a bare outline, a sketch of an incident. Diminished by isolation from their context, these vignettes are so terse that children won't be able to judge whether the subjects are possible models, or connected to them in any way. (Nor has the patriarchal disappeared: Leah and Rachel's text gives the final paragraph to Jacob, noting that "his sons became the ancestors" of Israel. They were Leah and Rachel's sons, too. Zeldis's primitive paintings are brightly colored and childlike, with some amusing details and touches (pink lambs with blue faces). The limits of her style leave all the women looking much alike, however. Oddly proportioned and flipper-footed, they might appeal more to sophisticated viewers than to the neophytes addressed by the spare texts.
Patricia Dooley, formerly at University of Washington, Seattle
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

Loudly colored folk-art paintings herald the patience, courage and strength of female figures from the Bible in this collection of brief stories. Beginning with Eve, McDonough retells 14 famous episodes, incorporating passages from the King James Bible. The reader meets Rebecca, who found favor with God through her kindness to a stranger, and the generous Yokhevedok, who floated her infant son down the Nile, where he was found by the Pharaoh's daughter and raised as Moses. Each spread consists of a full-page painting on the left and a bordered page of text on the right. Short biblical verses lead off each of McDonough's interpretations, and spirited colophons opening the various vignettes are a pleasing design element. While Zeldis's vibrant art matches the subject matter in tone, her roughly hewn shapes are not for everyone. McDonough's tales maintain the reverence of the originals and also highlight feminist-seeming issues in a voice accessible to children. Ages 5-up.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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