Moses the Leader (Now You Can Read)

 Moses the Leader
Now You Can Read...
Retold by Rosalind Sutton
Illustrated by Russell Lee
Copyright 1983
Status: Not currently in print, but preowned copies are available on ebay
Conclusion: Get Rid of It

There are quite a few Bible stories in this Now You Can Read series.  We have a few of them in our collection and I'm always a bit skeptical of them.  Parts of them are really great and include some excellent details from the Bible, but I've seen some awful mistakes in them too.

I believe that I picked up this particular book from a Little Free Library. I maintain a Little Free Library in front of our church building, so I usually grab the Bible stories that get placed there.  I used to put the Bible stories that didn't meet our requirements on the Little Free Library, but I began to feel bad about doing that.  If I knew the stories were incorrect, why should I make them available for other people from church who might not be as familiar with the true stories?  I tried putting a few on a different Little Free Library, but since it was also run by a church, that didn't seem any better. Then I started taking them to a thrift store, but I was still faced with the same dilemma. The people buying them may be strangers instead of church members, but should I really let these incorrect stories enter other people's libraries?  Maybe these books are going to children who do not attend a church and are not hearing God's word otherwise.  Is a somewhat flawed story better than nothing at all?  I haven't come up with a good answer yet.  For now, all of the books I find that don't match the Bible are still sitting in a pile in my bedroom as I try to determine what to do with them.  What do you think I should do with them?

The Good Points:

• This book is designed for children to read on their own, but is a little more advanced than the early reader books. I'd say this is appropriate for about a 1st or 2nd grader to read. It has short, clear sentences, but a reasonably wide vocabulary and doesn't include repetition.
• The illustrations are very pretty.
• The book gives some interesting details about the process the slaves used for making bricks.
• It includes Aaron. So many Moses books leave him out, but it's nice to see him included in this one.
• The details of the Parting of the Red Sea are very accurate.

The Discrepancies:

• The book opens right away with a big problem. It talks about Pharaoh's daughter finding Moses in the bulrushes, but says that she looked after the baby.  It never mentions that he went back to live with his mother.
• The book also describes Pharaoh's daughter telling him the history of his people, and how the "cruel" king made them slaves. The Bible doesn't talk about Moses's time as a child in Pharaoh's household, but I personally doubt the princess would have taught him the history of his people or described the former king as "cruel."  
• This book ignores the story of Moses killing the Egyptian and hiding his body.  Instead, it simply says that Moses left the palace, crossed the desert to another land, and lived there for many years.  It also skips the fact that he got married and had children while in that foreign land.
• The book also condenses the burning bush story. It doesn't mention that he argues with God, nor does it mention the miracles God gave Moses to perform.
• The Ten Plagues are almost entirely skipped. This section of the book starts with Moses asking the Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go for the first time, mentions that Pharaoh made them work even harder as a result, and concludes by saying God punished Pharaoh in many ways so he sent the Israelites away.
• The Bible says that Pharaoh sent 600 of Egypt's best chariots after the people.  The illustration only shows the soldiers marching on foot (though other illustrations show chariots in the water of the Red Sea.

While this book has done a wonderful job retelling the story of Moses parting the Red Sea and the Israelites crossing to safety, it makes a lot of other mistakes, and skips many other important details. This would have been a much better book if it had skipped most of the beginning parts and just focused entirely on the Red Sea.  I don't believe I can overlook so many mistakes though, so this is another book that should be given away.