Tullus: Adventures of a Christian Boy in Roman Times by Joe Newton and Bob Magnusen

Tullus: Adventures of a Christian Boy in Roman Times is a reprint of a Sunday Pix comic by the Christian publishing company, David C. Cook.  It was originally released in 1952.  Joe Newton is the writer and Bob Magnusen is the artist.
 
I embarked on this reading with my upper-elementary-aged son, a reluctant reader, each of us taking turns reading aloud one cell.  I was impressed with how quickly he began to read with expression, emphasizing the adventures as they built up in speed and climax.  He would even jump ahead to find out what would happen next!

These adventures are "swashbuckling", almost like reading a comic about a 1950s MGM Technicolor film.  While the men and boys were larger than life - great heroes, and the villians deserved boos and hisses, we found ourselves giggling at Helena, the lead female.  In keeping with the times of the original comic, she was portrayed just as over-the-top feminine as the men were over-the-top masculine.  It wasn't problematic at all, just amusing.

Though a Christian comic, the text is not preachy.  Doctrine is casually dropped into conversation.  It fits.  And ultimately, the story is the focus.  Charity, faith, trust, prayer are introduced as helps in time of need.  These are principles acceptable by all Christian faiths.

This is a great book to add to a parent's arsenal, helping children keep still and reverent during church meetings, and for reading during Sundays to help keep the day focused.  The pictures are just as entertaining and important to the story flow as the text, and young ones may find it interesting as well.  The audience that will love it best are readers between the ages of 8 and 12, who love adventure comics.

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I received this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Letters to a Young Mormon by Adam S. Miller

 I love stories - in all their forms. Poetry.  Songs.  Novels.  Nonfiction.  Movies.  Short stories.  Musicals. Plays. Podcasts.  Sit-coms.  Documentaries.  Memoirs.  Biographies.  Flash Fiction.  Longreads.  Comedians. Testimonies.

So how could I resist a book that talks about our own stories - our personal narratives - as a block to living the Life that is intended for each of us on an individual basis?

"God's work in your life is bigger than the story you'd like that life to tell.  His life is bigger than your plans, goals, or fears.  To save your life, you'll have to lay down your stories and, minute by minute, day by day, give your life back to him."

Wow!  This hit me to the core of who I am and what I think and feel about my faith and about my life.  It offered me an opportunity to think, quite deeply, about stories and the role they play for me.

"Faith isn't about getting God to play a more and more central part in your story.  Faith is about sacrificing your story on his altar."

We all tell ourselves stories about what is happening in our life, and we love to hear about and participate in the stories of others.  But the purpose of our narratives is connection and discovering truths, and then moving forward to something bigger and better.

This is a slim volume - a mere 78 pages.  It took me just one afternoon to read it all and to begin to absorb a new way of looking at the trees (doctrine) that make up a forest (the Gospel).  Published by the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship (BYU), this book is on the up and up.  Nothing tricky here...

I offer this with my highest recommendation for LDS readers who are looking to try their teeth on something sturdy and thought-provoking.  Adam S. Miller has impressed me.

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Writing

 
"Remember that writing things down makes them real; that it is nearly impossible to hate anyone whose story you know; and, most of all, that even in our post-postmodern era, writing has a moral purpose."

Andrew Solomon, The New Yorker


I am fascinated by this quote. 


*It is all right there in my journals.  Thirty years of them. My life.  The things that happened to me.  The things that did not.  Words - a feedback loop.  The dreams that gave me direction.  All of those words, those shapes created by dark lines and white spaces - they prove I am real.  


*I can honestly say that "hate" is not something I feel often or easily.  How can I?  Before me stands an enemy, but their story is utterly fascinating.  Either I have never experienced their plot or I have - and I get it.  I understand them too well.  To hate someone is to eschew curiosity or to hate myself.


*Words are still the medium of Truth.  Technology has increased our distance from intimacy but also given us connection through words to the most private thoughts and feelings of strangers.  Words still express meaning in a ever-widening world of apathy.


The story is enough: to show what is real, what is True, and the power of becoming.