Young Heroes of the Bible

by Kirk Douglas; Dom Lee

• ISBN13: 9780689814914
• ISBN10: 0689814917
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-10-01
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing

Summary

Retells five Old Testament stories in which Abraham, Rebecca, Joseph, Miriam, and David perform heroic deeds in their youth.

Author Biography

Kirk Douglas has been a Hollywood legend for over four decades. In a career encompassing more than eighty films, he has earned an Academy Award for a lifetime of achievement and three Academy Award nominations -- for Champion, The Bad and the Beautiful, and Lust for Life. As an independent producer, he has brought to the screen classics like Paths of Glory, The Vikings, Spartacus, Lonely Are the Brave, and Seven Days in May. His autobiographies, Climbing the Mountain: My Search for Meaning and The Ragman's Son, and his three novels, Dance with the Devil, The Gift, and Last Tango in Brooklyn, won praise from critics and became international best-sellers. His first book written for children was The Broken Mirror.

Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction

What to Do with a Very Sharp Ax
The Story of Abraham as a Kid

Even a Camel Gets Thirsty Sometimes
The Story of Rebecca as a Young Girl

A Spoiled Brat Who Grew Up to Be a Hero
The Story of Joseph as a Kid and a Young Man

Sister, Sister
The Story of Miriam and How She Risked Her Life for Her Baby Brother

The True Origins of Rubber Bands and Spitballs
The Story of David and His Bag of Pebbles

Conclusion

About Kirk Douglas

Excerpts

Introduction

When I was a kid, I didn't like Sunday school. Didn't we have enough school during the week? Why did adults have to go and invent a special school to keep kids indoors on Sunday morning? I resented it.

The only good thing about it was that they didn't make us do homework, and when class was over, they gave us a cookie.

That's because Sunday school wasn't like real school. They only taught one subject -- the Bible. In my hometown, Amsterdam, in upstate New York, Sunday school was held in the basement of the synagogue (if you were Jewish) or in the basement of a church (if you were Christian). But later, when I talked to the other kids, I found out we were all learning a lot of the same stuff -- stories about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and other people that lived in biblical times, three or four thousand years ago. Boy, that is a long time ago!

The basement classroom, where I went to Sunday school every Sunday morning, seemed like a dungeon to me. I felt like a prisoner. The furnace was down there, so you'd think it would be warm, but it was always cold. Maybe the furnace wasn't working right. We sat on metal folding chairs in a semicircle. The chairs were cold too, so sometimes I sat on my hands.

The teacher, Mrs. Apple, sat in a big wooden chair with a red velvet cushion. But she stood up a lot and walked around while she was talking.

She was always lecturing us about how you had to be good and read the Bible. It was all very boring. We had a book with pictures full of people with big long beards. They were either very old, or they all hated to shave.

Now I am very old, and I hate to shave too. But I still feel like a kid. I don't know why this is. But there must be a good reason.

Actually, I have felt like a kid all my life. Maybe that's why I became an actor. When you are an actor in the movies, you get to play games; you pretend to be someone else -- a cowboy or a boxer or a detective. My best friend, Burt Lancaster, was an actor too, and people said we never grew up. I didn't care -- I had a lot of fun making more than eighty movies. Maybe you saw some of them.

I never made any movies about the Bible, but my friend Burt did -- he made a movie called Moses and he pretended to be Moses. My friend Charlton Heston made a movie called The Ten Commandments, and he pretended to be Moses too. I was jealous. Why couldn't I be Moses? I made a movie where I pretended to be Spartacus, who lived in biblical times, but he never made it into the Bible.

Back when I went to Sunday school, I only liked one thing -- stories about kids. The kids in the Bible were cool. They did great things and without any help from adults either.

When we got to those parts, I always wanted to know more and I would raise my hand and ask questions. When the teacher ignored me, I would ask anyhow. That's a good way to get into trouble. Many of my questions were never answered, and I didn't find the answers until I was old and started to read the Bible again.

When you get old, a funny thing happens. You forget the things that took place last week, but you remember with great clarity the things that happened many years ago, when you were a kid.

I'm remembering now all the things I learned in Sunday school, and I have to admit, there's a lot of good stuff in the Bible that isn't at all boring. In this book, I am going to retell some of my favorite stories. I promise to leave out anything that's really dull. You won't read about old men with long beards here! In all my favorite stories, it's a little kid or a very young person who does something spectacular. That's why I call this book: Young Heroes of the Bible.

Let's begin.

Copyright © 1999 Byrna Company. All rights reserved.