Psalm Twenty-Three
Tim Ladwig
Tim Ladwig (Illustrator)
Publisher:
Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN:
0802851630
Year of Publication:
1997
Page Count:
32
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REVIEW
The text to this book, the psalm of the title, is well-known. The fact that Ladwig uses the New International Version, which is probably the most widely used translation in America, should make readers even more at home with it. It is the beautiful way in which Ladwig illustrates each line of the psalm, and how he tells a story in the process, that will be original to readers.
The first page establishes the setting as a cozy but slightly worn old house in an urban neighborhood. Then we see a boy and a girl being awakened by their grandmother for a day of school. The pictures are accompanied by the first lines of text, "The Lord is my shepherd." Then they eat breakfast, now joined by their grandfather, under, "I shall not be in want." And so the story of their day continues. As it unfolds, we see that their neighborhood is not just urban, it is economically depressed. On the way to school, at school, on their way home, and as they eat dinner and take their baths, the words of the psalm accompany them and communicate God's moment by moment care for them.
In using a rough neighborhood as the setting for a children's story, Ladwig obviously takes several risks. Happily, he escapes all potential pitfalls. He does not paint (literally) a sentimental picture, but he also does not go too far and create disturbing images. Children may wonder why it is the grandparents, and not the parents, who are raising the children. They may also ask why houses are boarded up or why a thuggish looking man on the street has a mean dog. Questions mean discussion, and that makes this book particularly outstanding for teaching your children about the comfort and safety that God provides us in a fallen, sometimes dangerous world. Not only that, but after a few readings they will likely have one of the Bible's greatest passages committed to memory.
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COMMENTS
I like the wonderful artwork which depicts an urban neighborhood. It is easy to think of the words of Psalm 23 as somehow taking place in some green meadow out in the country.
Yet God's words are true and powerful in the midst of difficult places and in our cities. Ladwig's drawings give us a contemporary setting to see this and to know the depth of God's love for all of His creation.
- Irene
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