Every year I plan on reading every contender for The Morning News’ Tournament of Books. The ToB is one of my most favorite things of all the things, so by golly, I’m going to read the entire list. I’m going to be an active, knowledgable participant. I’m going to leave minimum one comment, bonus points if it manages to be impressive. I’m going to be invested in roosters.
Shocking twist alert!
It never happens.
Second shocking twist alert!
Until now. (dramatic pause) Almost.
True, the 2021 ToB ended nearly a month ago. True, I still have five books to read in order to complete this part of my goal (more on that in a different post). True, the ToB Summer Camp shortlist was just released, adding to my increasingly disturbing ‘to read’ pile.
No matter! I sally forth!
What Does This Have to do with A Children’s Bible?
Ummm. A Children’s Bible was a ToB contender this year.
That’s It?
Yes.
By God.
Nope, this one is by Lydia Millet.
Wow, That Was a Hell of a Segue
And here we are on the other side.
If I could ‘Eternal Sunshine’ my brain in order to read A Children’s Bible without knowing a single thing about it before hand, I would.
A Children’s Bible is absolutely worth the read. I do recommend it. However, I believe prior knowledge of the plot and structure impacted my experience with the novel and not for the better.
Go in blind. Don’t even read the inside flap! Trust me on this one. And then please come back and tell me what it was like.
If that’s what you’re going to do then get outta here. Significant information and spoilers are ahead. Here is a picture of my dog Jeff, pondering the themes and meaning of the book, in order to help you avoid even a glance at ruinous words.
Hello, humans who have read the book or don’t mind knowing what’s going to happen before it happens. Let’s do this, shall we?
In the Beginning
The End of the World has been on everyone’s minds, ironically since the beginning of time. Each moment since has contributed to the Grand Finale and now, thanks to man-made foreshadowing, we’re getting a good idea of how this is all going down. Naturally, our storytellers have something to say about this.
The Bible, much like a Terrance Malick film, attempts to cover the entirety of existence while highlighting some choice characters and moments, including a talking donkey who doesn’t get the credit he deserves. The average Bible is about 1,200 pages long. Lydia Millet breezes in at a cool 224. Am I saying she’s a better writer than God? Well…she’s certainly more succinct.
When I was young and growing up in a religious household, I had many different kinds of picture Bibles. My favorite one was laid out like a graphic novel. I would read it over and over and over again, enraptured, terrified, desperate. I needed it to understand the world around me and feel secure. I believed each story with my entire heart and I knew, if I could just open my eyes a bit wider, search a bit deeper, I could hear God.
That child would be appalled by the woman she became. Yet, while reading A Children’s Bible, I couldn’t help but remember her with a bit more empathy than I usually do. What are children supposed to do when the world around them doesn’t make sense? Where can they go for answers when there are none?
“Those who trust in their riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf.
Whoever brings ruin on their family will inherit only wind, and the fool will be servant to the wise.
The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and the one who is wise saves lives.”
Proverbs 11:28-30 (NIV)
Chapter and Verse
12 youth have gathered at a lakeside mansion with their parents for a summer vacation. Our narrator is Eve, a teenage girl fiercely devoted to her younger brother Jack. A distinct line has been drawn between the kids and their parents, two different worlds living side by side, rarely seeping into each other.
The kids are disgusted with their parents who seem to only be committed to destructive vices and indifferent to their offspring. The parents are just that, never named, all of them Guess Who? characters to be flipped face down and forgotten. Understandable, given the situation. Climate change is having the last laugh and, yes, it’s the End of the World.
Where do the kids place the blame? Squarely on their affluent, clueless, detached, selfish parents. At war are two generations, both of which will never and have never achieved adulthood, a battle between “what can we do?” and “there’s nothing to be done”.
When a catastrophic storm hits, the kids escape, led out of bondage by Burl, a man they discover, by chance, sleeping amongst the reeds.
Oh, and during the storm, the kids took refuge in a wooden treehouse where Jack had gathered as many animals as he could.
Oh! And there are twins who get in a fight and one hits the other on the head with a rock.
Any bells ringing? Trumpets blowing?
Yes, as the story continues, the Bible comes to life in myriad scenarios. This was, in turns, both wonderfully fun and clever, oftentimes sobering and sickening, and so, so distracting.
A Testament
I knew from the start various parts of the Bible would be interwoven throughout the plot. As a result, I sought them out, trying to tie each event and character to a story or parable. I segmented the book mentally as I read.
It wasn’t until the end that I was able to step back and appreciate the book as a whole. It is its own, complete story, with characters alive in our own future But because I was so focused on the Bible story quest, I missed out on natural discoveries, those glorious ‘ah ha’ moments a well crafted book provides.
Millet is best when she trusts the reader to recognize the connections. Occasionally she doubts. Jack, who becomes fascinated with a picture Bible, will often say “Hey! This is just like what happened in my book!” That kind of telling hurts my soul a little bit.
Another example is Mattie, a man who teaches biology, explaining life, how it works, how to care for it, in a way that keeps every child at his feet listening. Eve describes the scenario:
“Biology was the best. It was held in the barn, where Mattie pulled up diagrams on his laptop and projected them onto a whitewashed wall…
Others joined the class, more each day…I’d watch from the open door and see them looking studious, their faces faithfully turned forward. They could have been children in school in a bygone era…
Children who sat there learning from their teachers, full of trust. Secure in the knowledge that an orderly future stretched ahead of them.
They sat quiet, gazing up at the projections…
After a while we were so devoted to those pictures that we were almost disciples.”
A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet, pages 135-137
The descriptions of the wonder and devotion? Beautiful. Telling us they were like disciples? Just smash me in the face with the King James, please.
There are, however, plenty of moments that are, no pun intended, simply divine, particularly the receiving of the Ten Commandments which was hysterically perfect.
Regardless, Millet creates so much with so little. We recognize these children as both our own and ourselves. We shake our fists at their foes but also know we’ve been complicit. We want to save them, help them at the very least. Millet is telling us we can, but we must do it here and we must do it now.
Revelation
A Children’s Bible is full of chaos and blood. Death, violence, murder, disease, it’s all there.
There’s also love, wisdom, connection, sacrifice, patience, and hope.
The Bible has been used to justify a lot of shit throughout history. It’s a voluminous to-do list, full of contradictions and punishment. Then Jesus comes along to help us make sense of it all and he tells us this:
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Matthew 22:37-40 (NIV)
One of the most beautiful and memorable moments in A Children’s Bible comes when Jack declares he’s solved the “mystery” of the Bible and explains who God and Jesus really represent. I won’t give it away, if you’ve decided to read all this before reading the book. It deserves to be a genuine experience. But the message of both Bibles is clear.
We must take care of each other.
Everything depends on this.
Otherwise we will be left with nothing but wind, and here on Earth the wind will break us.
A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet is available at Quail Ridge Books, Bookshop, at your local library, and literally anywhere that isn’t owned by Jeff Bezos.
Lemon Squeezy 
I’m so glad I took you at your word to go into the novel without so much as reading the jacket blurb. I had no idea where it was taking me, though I was happy to float down that proverbial river (even when it descended into whitewater and chaos). Having grown up without any religious affiliations and my understanding of Christian theology coming squarely from a secular perspective, the biblical allusions surfaced in less obvious ways, though the larger message (delivered through Jack’s code-breaking understanding of the holy trinity) rang out to me and has continued reverberate. Absolutely a worthwhile read; thank you for the inspiration and the thoughtful critique/review.
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