Zion Learns to See, Terence Lester and Zion Lester, illustrated by Subi Bosa. IVP Kids (ISBN: 781514006696) 2024.
Summary: Zion goes to work with her father at the community center and learns how those experiencing homelessness matter to God.
Terence Lester leads a community mobilization organization addressing various poverty issues. One Saturday, as he was headed out the door to work, he asked his daughter if she’d like to come with him. She decides this is more interesting than helping with household chores. As they drive to the center, she notices the neighborhood changing. she sees tents on the sidewalks.
Dad stops to get her favorite breakfast sandwich–then orders 50 more! They are for the people on the street around the center. Dad calls them “friends.” He knew their names and introduced each to Zion as she gave them a sandwich.
These happy moments are disturbed when Zion hears a driver curse out a homeless family. She can’t understand why someone would do that. Terence doesn’t know either but says that when you understand that every person matters to God, you begin to see them differently.
They talk about why these people don’t have homes (in the afterword, we learn over a million school children are homeless). As they pass out basic necessities, Zion meets lots of homeless people that day–adults, teens, and young children. They share about God’s love.
Zion decides two things. She wants to go back and also tell others what she saw. And some amazing things happen after that, including this book!
This beautifully told story by the Lesters is accompanied by the illustrations of Subi Bosa. Together, story and art convey the joy of treating people as those who matter to God. But there was one unhappy person in the story– that irate driver who just saw people living on the street. It’s a story that builds compassion and shows how we can matter to those who matter to God. Even when they don’t to society.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.
Last Saturday, my son and I made the pilgrimage to John K. King’s Used and Rare Books near downtown Detroit. A banner outside the building boasts of it being “Named #2 Book Store in the World” in 2014 by Business Insider. Having wandered through the aisles of books packed into four floors of this former glove factory, I can believe it.
It is a destination bookstore, one of those unusual and incredible places booklovers put on their bucket list. The closest thing to it in my home town is The Book Loft, boasting 32 rooms of books. But whereas the books in the Book Loft are new, everything at John King’s was used. It had the feel of being the place where books from estate sales go to live. There were lots of old hardbacks without dustcovers, the titles barely readable on the spines, books that were the “thing to read” back in the Seventies, and lots of old paperbacks.
Three of my finds were among the paperbacks. I love the mystery novels of Michael Innes, that I just noted are back in print. I like to find the old Penguin paperbacks and I found three I’ve not read in great condition. Score! I never see these at my local Half Price. I picked up a few others as well.
In one sense, any bookstore is a “destination” bookstore. I rarely go looking for a particular book and delight when a book finds me! But if I could travel, I’d love to visit some of the great ones like Powell’s, The Strand, Book People, Parnassus Books (Anne Patchett’s bookstore), and many others.
Of course, part of the fun was the traveling company. I don’t often get to spend a whole day with my son, solving the world’s problems, enjoying good Lebanese food along the way, and comparing our finds. This is a day I will treasure, and not just because of the great bookstore we visited.
Jordan Kisner asks “Who Needs Intimacy?,” exploring the trend in modern novels (perhaps paralleling modern life) where women are foregoing intimacy and child-bearing.
Another challenge of modern life, at least in the States, is the cost of housing. “Invisible Crisis” explores the “hidden phenomenon of working homelessness,” a review of There Is No Place for Us. The article notes “[i]n no state today can a minimum-wage worker afford a two-bedroom apartment.”
Finally, Matt Dinan’s “Saul Bellow’s Ravelstein” discusses the novel, twenty-five years after publication. This is a Saul Bellow I’ve not read but Dinan’s conclusion intrigued me:
“Ravelstein seems to speak to a problem that its author could not have known would be so acute a quarter century later. Reading a novel can’t solve the problem of the loss of the world to abstraction and distraction, but insofar as the problem is intellectual, an intellectual response is required.“
Quote of the Week
Sadly, one of the symptoms of the “loss of the world” described above is the erasing of the history of peoples and events that don’t fit the ideal of a national story. George MacDonald Fraser, born one hundred years ago April 2 observed:
“I think little of people who will deny their history because it doesn’t present the picture they would like.”
Miscellaneous Musings
I noted above the re-publication of the mysteries of Michael Innes as a welcome event. Publisher’s Weekly announced that another of my favorite author’s works are being reissued: Picador to Reissue More than 100 Novels by Georges Simenon. Both men were marvelous writers, first introduced to us on those green-spined Penguins!
One cannot help but write from the perspective of one’s time. But I’ve wondered if several books I’ve read recently would have been written differently after January 20 of this year.
The one pleasant surprise of yesterday was three new books I ordered from Barnes & Noble, arrived five days earlier than promised. I also used up a generous gift card, a retirement gift I finally redeemed. That was fun.
Next Week’s Reviews
Monday: Wesley Hill, Easter
Tuesday: Christine Marie Eberle, Finding God Along the Way
Wednesday: William Kent Krueger, Vermilion Drift
Thursday: James F. McGrath, John of History, Baptist of Faith
Friday, David T. Koyzis, Citizenship Without Illusions
So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for March 30-April 5, 2025!
Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page
