Portrait of Mary

Ven­er­at­ed for cen­turies, Mary remains, in the minds of many, a remote fig­ure, por­trayed in much of West­ern art as a belong­ing more to heav­en than to earth, with lit­tle to remind us of her very human roots in a com­plex Mid­dle East­ern cul­ture and his­tor­i­cal time. In Nik­ki Grimes’s vibrant nar­ra­tive, Mary’s life is made pal­able: the hard work she must have per­formed, the foods she must have pre­pared, the phys­i­cal pain and tumul­tuous emo­tions she must have felt, the lumi­nous faith that sus­tained her. Through­out, Grimes is care­ful not to stray beyond the events and char­ac­ters por­trayed in Scrip­ture while she brings Mary’s life near to us, mak­ing her sto­ry star­tling fresh and pow­er­ful. Both down-to-earth and devout, Por­trait of Mary reminds us of the earth­shak­ing nature of the great­est sto­ry ever told, the sto­ry of the Word made flesh. Writ­ten with grace and ele­gant sim­plic­i­ty, it is a gift book to enlight­en and inspire read­ers of all ages.