Having completed the two cycles of legend to which she has devoted her career so far, Anne Ricegives us now her most thoughtful and powerful book, a novel about the childhood of Christ the Lord based on the gospels and on the most respected New Testament scholarship.

The book's power derives from the passion its author brings to the writing, and the way in which she summons up the voice, the presence, the words of the young Jesus who tells the story.

From the Hardcover edition.