Author/illustrator team Elizabeth Winthrop and Charles Mikolaycak, who also collaborated on A Child Is Born: The Christmas Story, turn here to the story of Easter. Winthrop adapts texts from the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke in her telling, which begins with the Passover feast, and continues on through the betrayal of Jesus, the trial before Pilate, and the Crucifixion, before culminating with the Resurrection...

I read He Is Risen: The Easter Story directly after Brian Wildsmith's gorgeous The Easter Story, and the two books present an interesting contrast, when it comes to how to approach this tale, when retelling it for children. Winthrop's text here is far more Biblical than the Wildsmith telling, which is much simpler, and imagines the story from a donkey's perspective. Textually, I think this one would work far better for somewhat older children, who are ready for the more advanced vocabulary and sentence structure. The sepia-toned artwork here from Mikolaycak is more historical than the stylized Wildsmith paintings, and beautiful in its own right, although I found that I preferred the latter. I think my ideal Easter story picture-book would pair Wildsmith's artwork with a slightly simplified version of the text here. I like the idea of staying as faithful to the Bible accounts as possible, but somehow the text felt a little too advanced for a picture-book of this kind. Still, many parents and Sunday School teachers specifically looking for more Biblical Easter retellings, should find this one of interest, and it is to them that I would recommend it, as well as to fans of Charles Mikolaycak's artwork. ( )