Queen Esther the Morning Star in Unknown Books?

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Apr 28, 2011 Ronyell rated it really liked it

Shelves: creepy-ending, goodreads-group-reads, racism, religion, jewish-books

I was reading this book for the Goodreads Children’s Book Picture Book Club for the theme of royalty and this was one of the rare occasions where I have read a children’s book that has religion as the theme of the story besides “The Clown of God.” “Queen Esther the Morning Star” is a children’s book by Mordicai Gerstein about how a young woman named Esther is chosen to be King Ahasuerus’ new wife and she and her cousin, Mordecai realizes the evil scheme of the king’s prime minister Haman, who wa I was reading this book for the Goodreads Children’s Book Picture Book Club for the theme of royalty and this was one of the rare occasions where I have read a children’s book that has religion as the theme of the story besides “The Clown of God.” “Queen Esther the Morning Star” is a children’s book by Mordicai Gerstein about how a young woman named Esther is chosen to be King Ahasuerus’ new wife and she and her cousin, Mordecai realizes the evil scheme of the king’s prime minister Haman, who wanted to have all the Jews killed because Mordecai refused to bow down to him. “Queen Esther the Morning Star” is an interesting story to read, but the revenge theme and the death scenes might scare smaller children.

Mordicai Gerstein has done an excellent job at both writing and illustrating this story about the consequences of getting revenge on other people. What really interests me about this book was how the author Mordicai Gerstein related his family history through this book as he mentioned that “Mordecai” is his family’s name as his grandfather is also named “Mordicai” and it was interesting learning about the Jewish holiday “Purim.” I was also impressed by the interesting plot about Esther trying to save her people with the help of her cousin Mordecai as Esther is shown as a brave and dedicated heroine who would do anything to save her people. I also loved how brave and loyal Mordecai was to his traditions and refused to let anyone tell him what to do and I also loved the relationship between him and Esther as stated in the book, they had a father/daughter relationship with each other and they are truly close to each other and are willing to protect each other, which is an aspect I truly loved. Mordicai Gerstein’s illustrations are colorful and fluent as there is lots of detail being put into each character and the background. I loved the way that Mordicai Gerstein painted the setting of Persia as there are beautiful domes surrounding the city and the inside of the king’s palace looks extremely colorful and rich that I just could not take my eyes of the illustrations. I loved the way that Haman is drawn as he truly looks like a true villain as he has an evil looking face in every image and I was interested in his clothing as he wears a green robe, black boots and has a huge pointed green hat.

Parents should know that this book revolves around revenge and there are several scenes where characters are killed off throughout the book. Now, the idea of people being killed sounds pretty frightening to a small child, so parents might want to watch out for the death scenes. I also thought that the ending of this book was pretty harsh, given that someone dies (I will not tell you who) and everyone celebrates like nothing happened. Also, the revenge theme of this book, where Haman wanted to kill all the Jews because Mordecai would not do what he said, is a little unsettling as innocent people are about to die because of Haman’s revenge against Mordecai and also Esther seems to be thrown into the middle of all this as she has to be the one to fix this situation.

Overall, “Queen Esther the Morning Star” is an interesting book about the importance of family and loyalty, but the whole revenge theme might be upsetting for some children and adults. I would recommend this book to children ages seven and up since this book is a bit too intense for smaller children to handle. ...more

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Aug 27, 2012 Krista the Krazy Kataloguer marked it as to-read

Shelves: to-read-interloan-my

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