McArthur Krishna and Bethany Brady Spalding; illustrations by Kathleen Peterson. Girls Who Choose God: Stories of Strong Women from the Book of Mormon. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2015. ISBN 978-1-62972-101-9. List price $18.99; $15.68 from Amazon.

They’ve done it again. The writing and illustrating team – and make no mistake: the illustrations are every bit as essential to this book as the words are – who gave us Girls Who Choose God: Stories of Courageous Women from the Bible (which I reviewed last year here) have given us another gorgeous, inspiring album of women’s portraits from the Book of Mormon.

What? I can hear you say, How could they find enough women in the Book of Mormon for an entire volume? They did it by finding the women who are there, whether or not their names are given to us. So while we have stories of “Sariah, the Matriarch” and “Abish, the Daring Missionary,” we also have “Sisters at a Crossroads,” – Nephi’s sisters, having to choose which brothers to follow when those brothers parted – and “The Heroic Daughters” in the land of Zeniff who stood between their fathers and an invading army to plead for the lives of those fathers, and “Women Who Clapped for Joy” when they believed Alma and chose to be baptized.

In each case, these are girls and women who were agents, actors in their own lives. That’s one part of the genius of this series: women who appear in the scriptures almost as victims, as having little say in their own lives and fates, are given to us here as women who chose to respond to their circumstances with faith and free will.

As with the Bible version, each chapter in this Book of Mormon version contains the same essential parts:

• A chapter title that often gives us a strong keyword by which to think of the women: “matriarch,” “strong,” “heroic,” “great faith,” “daring.”
• Two full-page pictures: a portrait of the women herself, and an image of the woman carrying out the choice she has made, interacting with the people affected by that choice, and so on.
• A question mid-way through the story that says, “This is the dilemma. She could do A, or she could do B.” The reader can pause a moment to think about why the situation allows for those two choices, and to decide which is best, before she turns the page to learn which choice the woman made.
• A question of the reader, based on the action of the woman in the story: “When have you chosen to break from false tradition to follow God?” or “When have you chosen to speak up against something that was wrong?” or “When have you chosen to use your strengths for good?” These are not always easy questions – but they’re good ones, and ones young girls can answer, perhaps with careful suggestions made by parents.
• An opening illustration. In the Bible volume, these illustrations were plants, houses, and other scenery-setting pictures. In the Book of Mormon volume, these illustrations are all trees. The illustrator tells us these trees – all native Mesoamerican trees and all fruit-bearing – are reminiscent of God’s love (think: the tree of life in Lehi’s dream) and of the Savior’s statement that “by their fruits ye shall know them.” Anyone reading this book with a girl old enough for that kind of abstract thought should lead the girl to discover that symbolic significance. And if it were me, I would think carefully how to help the girl make that discovery herself, rather than lecturing her about it.
• Text that is brief, covering the essential details without moralizing or preaching. The stories are all matter-of-fact: “Such-and-such happened. The woman must make a decision. What will she choose?” The more I think about what the authors could have written, the happier I am with what they did write, just enough, the right details, and nothing more.
• The stories are simple (deceptively simple, given the significance of the girls’ choices), and the sentence structure is straightforward and relatively simple … but the vocabulary is not babyish. “Crafting,” “reaping,” “collapsing,” “covenants,” “brilliant,” “escape,” “breastfeed,” “matriarch” – these words may not always be in the vocabulary of every young reader, but they are strong and vivid and easily understood in context

The book is oversize and therefore too large for my scanner, but the snapshots on this page will give you some idea of the gorgeousness of the book.

In the Bible book, the artist reserved the color white for the whites of the characters’ eyes. In this book, white is used somewhat more liberally, for beads and wardrobe details – but still, the viewer’s eyes are immediately drawn to the characters’ eyes because of that brilliant white in the midst of richer, darker colors. There’s something about that effect that makes me see the women as individual people, with thought and will and deliberateness happening behind those eyes. I still haven’t quite found the words to describe the effectiveness of that detail, but it is powerful.

The book has a chapter of “Family Discussion Questions,” three or four questions that could be the focus of a well-run Family Home Evening talk with not just one child, but with all. And because the questions are open-ended and not rote reading comprehension questions, even the parents may find themselves reflecting profitably. “How does God sometimes bless our lives with unexpected paths?” “What would you like to ask Jesus if you could sit with Him?” “How do you know when to take care of yourself and when to put your family’s needs first?”

Everything about this book emphasizes choice and agency and responsibility – active participation in life, actively choosing God over any other alternative. “Choose God,” the authors encourage. “Be strong.”

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Tomorrow evening – Wednesday, November 4, at 7:00 p.m. – readers in the Provo area have an opportunity to meet the authors and artist and to see the original artwork at the Writ & Vision art gallery and bookstore, 274 West Center Street, Provo.

The Girls Who Choose God page on Facebook indicates other upcoming events.