Reuben The Fisherman
Reuben is the story of the paralysed man that Jesus’s disciples lowered through the roof of a crowded house for Christ to heal. “Lift up your bed and walk”. So Reuben lifted and walked – straight into trouble. He is arrested and interrogated by the Jewish church hierarchy, escapes and flees to Galilee where he is taken on by Zebedee the fisherman whose sons have left him to follow Jesus. Reuben enjoys his job, gets promoted, and settles into his new life, but talk of The Preacher is on everyone’s lips as word spreads of the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth.
The story was interesting, a different angle on a well-known theme. The narrative is somewhat simplistic in its story-telling and is very modern in the sense of vernacular and language; it reads as if it is a 21st century story, I didn’t get any feel for the past or historical setting, but I don’t think the author intended this to be “historical” in that sense, which is why younger readers (younger teenagers) would be a more suitable age group.
The story could benefit from a thorough edit as there were several obvious typos and repeated words which jarred a little; “rather” appears twice in a sentence in the opening paragraph, and twice more on the next page. Minor detail, perhaps, but another edit would iron out these wrinkles and lift the story to make it suitable for inclusion in school libraries as an intriguing and thought-provoking aid for younger readers to discuss in Religious Knowledge lessons.
