Book Description

Rice departs from her usual subject matter to pen this curious portrait of a seven-year-old Jesus, who departs Egypt with his family to return home to Nazareth. Rice's painstaking historical research is obvious throughout, whether she's showing the differences among first-century Jewish groups (Pharisees, Essenes and Sadducees all play a part), imagining a Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem or depicting the regular but violent rebellions by Jews chafing under Roman rule. The book succeeds in capturing Jesus' profound Jewishness, with some of the best scenes reflecting his Torah education and immersion in the oral traditions of the Hebrew Bible. As fiction, though, the book's first half is slow going. Since it is told from Jesus' perspective, the childlike language can be simplistic, though as readers persevere they will discover the riches of the sparse prose Rice adopts.

From Los Angeles Times

This is an straightforward tale set firmly-- thanks to Rice's considerable strengths in research--in the geographic and historical context of the time…… Rice retains our rapt attention with the use of small, visual details. We can almost taste the food Jesus would have eaten, experience the sights and sounds, the chaos and bustle with which he would have been familiar. We're introduced to a world more brilliant and tangible than the sketcky outlines of the traditional narrative."