Gideon’s Bible
A Father & Son Discuss God, the Bible and Life
- Publisher
- ECW Press
- Initial publish date
- May 2020
- Category
- Sacred Writings, Old Testament, Old Testament, Old Testament
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9781770414853
- Publish Date
- May 2020
- List Price
- $29.95
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781773055213
- Publish Date
- May 2020
- List Price
- $23.99
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
A singular exploration of the Hebrew Bible, playfully illustrated by renowned cartoonist and illustrator Duan Petričić
Gideon’s Bible is a conversation between Rick Salutin, and his son, Gideon. It begins with Gideon as a child, asking why he was given his name. Rick says it’s from the Bible and Gideon asks, “What’s the Bible?”
Although the conversations portrayed in the book span all the years of Gideon’s life, most of them occurred during his more recent years in high school. The book consists of 64 wildly illustrated colour pages. It is modeled on classical Jewish biblical commentaries, in which biblical text is surrounded by analysis that has been written over centuries and that explores both the text itself and the conversations that surround each passage. In Gideon’s Bible, biblical text is framed with striking illustrations and caricatures of Rick and Gideon as they relate to the passage and discuss subjects like God, parenting, current concerns of youth, literature, friends, and formative experiences that each of them have had.
About the authors
Rick Salutin has written award-winning drama (Les Canadiens, 1837), fiction (A Man of Little Faith) and journalism (op-ed columnist for The Globe and Mail from 1991-2010 and the Toronto Star since then). He has taught almost continuously, in some manner, since he was about 15, including a course in the Canadian Studies program at University College, the University of Toronto, since 1978.
Duan Petricic was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, but loved to pretend that he grew up in Zemun, an old city located just across the river (and now a part of Belgrade). As a boy he did all the forbidden things that children do, but what Duan loved most was to draw. He started drawing at age four and, encouraged by his parents, he never stopped. He found inspiration in everything, and drawing became a way to communicate with the people around him. Two books that were very important to his childhood were an old encyclopedia with lots of pictures and The Boys from Pavel’s Street by Ferenc Molnár. Early on, he was moved by the drawings found within the encyclopedia. As he grew older, he adored many artists, including Leonardo da Vinci, Dürer, and Picasso. Duan has been illustrating children’s books for many years. He has received numerous honors and awards for his work, in North America and internationally, including an IBBY Certificate of Honour and an Alb
Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario, Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College.
Throughout her writing career, Margaret Atwood has received numerous awards and honourary degrees. She is the author of more than fifty volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction and is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman (1970), The Handmaid's Tale (1983), The Robber Bride (1994), Alias Grace (1996), and The Blind Assassin, which won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000. Atwood's dystopic novel, Oryx and Crake, was published in 2003. The Tent (mini-fictions) and Moral Disorder (short stories) both appeared in 2006. Her most recent volume of poetry, The Door, was published in 2007. Her non-fiction book, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, part of the Massey Lecture series, appeared in 2008, and her most recent novel, The Year of the Flood, in the autumn of 2009. Ms. Atwood's work has been published in more than forty languages, including Farsi, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish, Korean, Icelandic and Estonian. In 2004 she co-invented the Long Pen TM.
Margaret Atwood currently lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.
Awards
- Short-listed, Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature
Editorial Reviews
“[A] delightful and poignant account of the first part of the Bible … There are also splendid illustrations by Duan Petričić, and as son Gideon grows and matures, and the questions and answers between dad and son progress, those pictures ride in parallel with the narrative in an utterly disarming and charming partnership … An intelligent, empathetic, and often moving journey of understanding between two fine minds and two good people, who love each other.” — Toronto Star
“Thought-provoking and insightful with a dash of lighthearted humour, Gideon’s Bible is a unique work of love, faith, and family.” — Open Book
“They have unpretentiously woven their own stories into an eternal one in such a magical way, it would almost make you want to take a guided tour of the Holy Land with the two of them sweetly nattering all along the way.” — Literary Review of Canada
“I loved it from the first page to the last, because most of all it is a tribute to the triumph of the spirit that leads us all to reach out and share, and to the other side of that equation, to reach out and dispute.” — Literary Review of Canada
