The Fourth Wise Man - Hardcover

Grade 2-5?This beautifully illustrated picture-book length abridgment of Henry Van Dyke's story, originally published in 1895, makes a fine addition to Christmas collections. Artaban, the fourth wise man, arranges to meet his three scholarly friends, all of whom plan to follow the bright star in the sky that their studies have told them signals the birth of the King of the Jews. However, he is delayed when he stops to nurse a desperately ill man back to life. The other Magi leave without him, but Artaban continues alone to Bethlehem, selling one of his precious gifts to purchase camels for his own caravan. Once again he is delayed by his generous spirit when he sacrifices another treasure to rescue a woman and her child from Herod's soldiers. Artaban travels for years "and though he found no King of Kings to worship, he found many people to help. Wherever he went, he fed the hungry and clothed the naked; he healed the sick and he visited those in prison..." Even as he goes to succor Jesus before His Crucifixion, Artaban stops to help a young girl and, at last, his goodness is recognized. This is a deeply moving story, simply and strongly retold. Lush, glowing watercolor illustrations capture the heat of the desert and the nobility of the wise man while perfectly complementing this tale about the truest meaning of Christmas.?AC
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Ages 5^-9. In a short story written in the 1800s, Henry Van Dyke imagined what it would have been like had there been a fourth wise man, one who did not complete the journey to see the baby Jesus in Bethlehem. Summers' retelling, based on Van Dyke's story, introduces Artaban, a Zoroastrian man living in Persia. Artaban sets off to meet his three friends Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, but he stops along the way to assist a dying man, rescue a child in Herod's Massacre of the Innocents, and save a woman about to be sold into slavery. Artaban misses his chance to worship Jesus, but at the end of his life, he is rewarded for helping the needy: "As often as you did these things for the least of my children, you did them for me." The touching story flows smoothly and eloquently, and the richly colored illustrations capture the book's emotional intensity with careful attention to the setting's place and time. Susan Dove Lempke