"Twice Freed" by Patricia St. John

I can't believe I'd never read this book before!  I feel like I read something else by Patricia St. John, as her style felt extremely familiar -- I'm betting my childhood best friend loaned me one of her other books, as this was exactly the sort of sweet Biblical fiction her family was so good at finding.  My friend Eva gave me a copy for Christmas because she knew I love the story of Onesimus and Philemon in the Bible; she knows this because the character Ness in my book One Bad Apple is actually named Onesimus, and I have his adoptive father Wallace actually quote a bit of Philemon in my book.

Anyway.  THIS book weaves a fictional story around the slave Onesimus, his master Philemon, and the apostle Paul.  It is crammed with wonderful historical details about live in the Roman Empire for slaves and free, for Christians and Jews and nonbelievers.  I just ate all that historicity up with a spoon, I tell you.  

St. John portrays Onesimus as a proud and stubborn boy who grows slowly into a proud and stubborn man.  He eventually runs away from his master, Philemon, and ends up in Rome with Paul kind of by accident -- or at least, Onesimus doesn't get there on purpose, but you can see God's hand guiding his journey all the way.  Onesimus has been resistant to this new Christian religion that his master, his mother, and so many around him convert to, but when he sees how Paul bears his own bondage and chains, he can't ignore the power of Christ to give even the most humble and downtrodden person hope and peace.

While this book doesn't shy away from the cruel reality of slavery, it doesn't fixate on that either, but treats it in what I feel is age-appropriate for its middle-grade audience.  I'll definitely be encouraging my kids to read Twice Freed, and possibly even incorporating it into our world history curriculum.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for discussions of beatings, brandings, an earthquake, and other harsh realities, all of which are presented in a straight-forward, non-sensationalist way.

This has been the 11th book I've read from my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2022.