Recognition

It is a great title, perhaps the perfect one for a book of imaginative short stories about characters in the Bible. Although you can see that the characters were most probably there, they are not necessarily recorded - like the serving girl at the last supper. The stories are written so that the Bible story is not revealed until the very end. That leads me to a guessing game as I read each paragraph. Who is this? How will it tie in to the Bible? Of course all this is fiction and there are occasionally times when elements of the story break the belief and jar with my (supposedly) known facts. There is a mention of the game of 'not stepping on the cracks in the pavement', where my thought was that those people would never have seen a pavement. These are minor criticisms. Mostly it is the love and compassion of God that we are asked to recognize. Janet has a high view of God's love and ability to redeem even the worst people. The people are realistic too, the stories deal with the subject and their families, the redemption is not always comfortable leaving the subjects family broken.
This is not a book I would have chosen to read. It was lent to me with the question 'Do you have time to read it?' It looks quite short so I said yes, I'm glad I did, it helps me think in a different way, as imagination should.
If you read the book (or have already read it), let me know if there is recognition provided by this review.