A compelling retelling of the story of Jesus of Nazareth.

When Maryam, a virgin and wife of Yosef, gives birth, it’s a miracle child: a beautiful girl. But at age 5, the child proclaims: “I am a boy. My name now is Yehushua.” Yosef accepts this, but Maryam cannot quite bring herself to do so.

Ryman captures better than anyone I’ve ever read what it would be like to live in the absolute poverty of first century Galilee, how it’d feel to follow a charismatic teacher, what miracles might feel like, how it might be to have the God of all creation folded down into the mind of one peasant from a nowhere town.

I’ll be thinking about this book for a long long time.