Queen Esther (Arch Books)

I am usually really pleased with the Arch Books, but this one is unfortunately lacking. Essentially, the story portrayed in this is simply "The Jewish people were being killed, so Esther talked to the King and he said 'Okay, I'll stop killing them."The process of Esther inviting the King over for dinner twice is skipped over, Mordecai's achievements as a loyal guard to the king are not mentioned, and the villainous Haman is completely left out of the story altogether. The Book of Esther is considered to be one of the most enigmatic books in the Bible and Tanakh, and it's even recognized as a great literary achievement by secular scholars - unfortunately, this is a gross under-representation of that story, even for a child.

I have bought dozens of these Arch books for my kids, and I love that they give an account of Bible stories, usually accurately, but this was the only story I read from these Arch books that was skewed from the actual storyline; which I didn’t like. The pictures were well-drawn. And, most of the Arch books have different authors.

Very disappointing. The story is vague and poorly written, illustrations are sub par. It's not the quality of other Arch books I've purchased. I don't even want to read it to the children because it won't make sense to them. Very disappointing.

The Arch series presents a great many of the Bible stories in colorful and fun ways. Can also be used for non-readers or ESL as picture-books. And, for more used stories, there are multiple approachs and drawing styles.

Well done but strayed from a few details.

My younger kids love that it rhymes. The rhythmic tone keeps their attention better.

True-to-scripture and yet interesting (a mix that's hard to find for young children's Bible interpretations).

Didn't flow like other Arch books.