The Call of the Green Bird

by Alberta Hawse

Book Overview

This story is about Mi'kal, a young Bedouin prince--half Jew, half Arab--who leaves his camp after being threatened with death by his jealous half-brother. The reader will recognize the truth about... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0880707798
• ISBN13: 9780880707794
• Release Date: September 1995
• Publisher: Multnomah Books
• Length: 335 Pages
• Weight: 1.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

What A Book!

I accidentally picked this book up in the sale racks - a place where I will try out an author I don't know. What a surprise. What amazing writing. I certainly hope there are other books by Alberta Hawse. I will be searching. Excellent historical Christian fiction.

The Call of the Green Bird

The world needs to hear more from this author! For every individual, there are a few books in a lifetime that they would recommend to everyone they love, even buy for them. This is one. This work of historical fiction, by Alberta Hawse, gives readers their money's worth. If you are tired of super-thrillers with world-wide conspiracies and two-dimensional characters with hokey names, this book is for you. "The Call of the Green Bird" is a story about very special, yet ordinary people. Familiar names from biblical literature appear on the fringes, are welcomed into the tale, and become real in ways never before imagined. Many current works of fiction, which address biblical topics are overtly doctrinaire and thus may repel some. "The Call of the Green Bird" is a story about everyone who is looking for the answer to the problem of death.The story takes place in a Bedouin camp in the deserts of Syria, in 30 A. D. The portrayal of everyday life and practices of the people of the time-period is undoubtedly the product of painstaking research. No pertinent point is glossed over; no ends are left loose. The central character, a teenage boy named Mi'kal, has a yearning to conquer death, and he believes the secret to this lies in the pursuit of the fabled Phoenix, the "Green Bird" which rises from the ashes of its funeral pyre. When rumors of strange happenings in far-off Roman Palestine reach Mi'kal's ears, rumors of healing the sick and the dead, he decides to investigate. The adventures that follow are fast-paced, and intriguing. The story never stumbles.Alberta Hawse is an adept writer, able to juggle a vast number of characters through numerous plots and subplots. Her fluid descriptive prose created settings so believable I literally felt I was present in every scene. The story is replete with references to details that are distinctly female in their point of view, and yet entirely charming and engaging to the male reader. Her use of foreshadowing was skillful and rarely yielded an outcome that resembled my predictions. The author avoided what to me is the unpardonable sin of placing unbelievable dialogue in the mouths of her characters. Every word seemed tight and natural, and contemporary colloquialisms never reared their ugly heads. For those readers searching for an epic story in the caliber of "Ben Hur," this book will satisfy.