A few years ago children’s book editor Sylvie Frank reached into a slush pile and pulled out John Sullivan’s picture book story Kitten and the Night Watchman. That Frank even read this manuscript is a little amazing. The slush pile represents unsolicited manuscripts and ranks as a low editorial priority. In the book publishing industry,…
In this series of Advent animals we now come to the Lamb of God and the Serpent. Both are in Bethlehem–along with shepherds, wisemen, Mary, Joseph, donkey, sheep, and camels. Perhaps the Ancient Deceiver, disguised as a snake, doesn’t pick up immediately that something BIG is happening in this insignificant sheep town. Then, he hears angelic…
King Herod’s palace is in an uproar. Wisemen from the East, arriving on camels, are asking, “”Where is the child born to be King of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him?” Jerusalem scholars have studied that incredible star, too. But they don’t tell Herod it means the birth…