Disclosure: I received this complimentary product (Miriam’s Song) through Nuts About Books.
How human do you want biblical characters to be? In Miriam’s Song the humanity of Miriam is brought to the forefront, the lessons she learned, the depth of love for a brother, and renewing obedience to God. This is her story, this is, in essence, her song.
The Details
Revell (a division of Baker Publishing Group) is the publisher of this 408-page trade paperback read. Written by Jill Eileen Smith, this is a fictionalized account of Miriam, the sister of Moses. It is the third in her series The Heart of a King. She has written many fictionalized accounts of people in the bible. This is Christian historical fiction written with the adult reader in mind.
I am reviewing Miriam’s Song on behalf of Nuts about Books.
Point of view changes between characters, you need to pay attention to chapter heading to be alert to who is speaking. It’s not that difficult to figure out though as each character talks in their own voice.
Each character is developed well. As you meet each main person you get to feel like you know them and can sort of predict how they will respond in a given situation.
With a writing voice that is informative as well as interesting, you want to read just to find out more. I was intrigued by the idea that part of the plagues was to encourage Israel as well to follow the one true God as well.
I particularly enjoy when author’s share what they deliberately changed in the story. Of course sometimes, to tell a good story, you need to change details to make the story more robust.
Should you Get Miriam’s Song
Should you get it? Honestly, I don’t know. Let me explain why.
I was eager to read Miriam’s Song. To catch a deeper glimpse into her life, to see the events are linked together easily for me to read.
But about 1/3 of the way through I started to feel like I really didn’t know why I wanted to read this. The abundant use of dreams, the gushing “oh, Moses is so special, we’re going to pin all our hopes on him” from Miriam and Aaron. When the biblical text doesn’t support that. Once Moses left, he was out of the picture so to speak. Could Miriam and Aaron have wondered what happened with their brother? For sure. I guess I just didn’t care for the dreams and gushing certainty that he was the answer.
I also didn’t like the spin placed on Zipporah. The understanding is there that it gives a possible meaning to why Moses might not have circumcised his one son, but it just.. I don’t know… didn’t set well.
But what doesn’t set well with me might be okay for you. Honestly, you might be able to accept more easily the spin Ms. Smith puts on Miriam and Aaron. More easily accept that Moses only sent Zipporah away because she begged to go back, and so forth. It might, like me, drive you to the scriptures to verify details, to suss out why the author wrote as she did. There is much speculation and the story was told, and I can see how it was a difficult story to write. There are many gaps and unknowns in the story, and when one writes a complete story you want to/need to fill in those gaps. Perhaps a different way of filling the gaps would have left me wanting to read more.
