Whistlestop Tales - around the Bible with 10 extraordinary children by Krish and Miriam Kandiah 

Creative retelling of 10 Bible stories, showing how God uses unusual people surprisingly often

Whistlestop tales around the Bible with 10 extraordinary children
By Krish and Miriam Kandiah with Andy S Gray (illustrator)
Hodder and Stoughton
ISBN: 9781399801300
Reviewed by Terry Young

Having recently reviewed Creative ways to tell a Bible story by Martyn Payne, it was fun to explore another promotion of Bible stories. The publishers, Hodder & Stoughton, are launching Hodder Faith Young Explorers, to which Krish and Miriam have contributed a selection of stories in chronological order from Genesis to Acts.

These stories would make good bedtime reading at 6-10 minutes a pop with a satisfying range of lugubrious words (Paul’s, ‘lurching, lumbering’ ship) and wordplay for grown-ups embedded in, for instance, Zacchaeus’ story (‘The conman who was caught short’). The flow is lively, and in case you are worried that the authors might have overly embroidered the story, you can read the original for yourself, since Bible references are given at the end of each chapter.

I simply do not know how many children would read these for themselves – my guess is that you would have to be 8-10 years old, and more likely to be a girl than a boy – but they are the sort of stories where a grown-up might lay them down halfway through to see whether a little pair of hands would pick them up to get to the end. There are very few pages where you are confronted with nothing but text, so you can get through the 18 or so pages per chapter quickly.  Most of the words wind their way around Andy’s illustrations or shove themselves to one side to make room for wild and wonderful eyes, beards, swords and action! Overall, there is an extravagance in communication which I rather like.

I’d heard of Krish before – he’s well-known, after all – and had a vague expectation of theological undercurrents, which there are: Paul’s thorn in the flesh is connected to the shipwreck, for instance, linking Acts 27, 28 and 2 Corinthians 11. However, there is a much more obvious agenda behind this collection and the style in which it is told: this is about diversity and the Kingdom of God.

I hadn’t realised that Krish and Miriam fostered. It sounds like they want to spend their time with the more unusual children, and that they also end up getting close to parents of unusual people. Size, shape, skin and scars seem to separate their charges from those around, and so this book is part encouragement to those who are different and part introduction to a theology of diversity. Each chapter begins by introducing someone Krish and Miriam know well and then links their experience of difference to the Bible story being told.

As someone with impairment in all four limbs and an ungainly gait, I can identify with some of what these children have experienced, and I understand the liberating impact of a well-grounded faith. The question is, what does a well-grounded faith have to say?

Krish and Miriam make the case that God can use unusual people. The contrast is that the children to whom we are being introduced are generally starting off on their lives, whereas we have the entire life of each Bible character laid out in review. This is a book about hope rather than an analysis of what success might lie in later life for them, or how it would connect to a childhood beyond the ordinary.

I think Krish and Miriam have gone a step further, because the number of examples they cite suggests strongly that God uses unusual people surprisingly often. This strength-in-weakness enigma lies at the heart of our gospel, and it is nice to see it addressed in this context. I’d like to see Krish and Miriam move on to the question of why God allows such difficult childhoods to develop and then why God seems to favour them with such fruit-bearing later on.

Ironically, Krish and Miriam try to protect their listeners and readers from the more extreme suffering in the stories. The Samaritan’s five failed marriages and her live-in-lover are eased aside, when many readers today will be familiar with insecure and rapidly changing homes. I wonder at times if we avoid the Bible’s graphic descriptions more for the grown-ups than for the kids, but I’m content that these authors have gone as far as they feel they can.

So, then, why read this book for yourself or to someone else?  First, the stories are well told around engaging illustrations.  Second, the connection between children living today and the Bible story to which each forms a preface, establishes a key principle in how to read your Bible. I recently led a Bible study with a group of adult singles and was surprised at how many struggled to connect a passage under review with a real-life situation.

Finally, it is a non-threatening way into diversity in church, where we have a much better story than the world around.  Difference is not just about job protection or even the Paralympics: it’s about God’s plans and how startlingly some of them are being fulfilled.

Read on…!
 

Terry Young is a missionary kid who read science and engineering. After a PhD in lasers, he worked in R&D before becoming a professor, when he taught project management, information systems and e-business, while leading research in healthcare.

He set up Datchet Consulting to have fun with both faith and work and worshipped at Baptist churches in Slough for 19 years before moving to the New Forest