The Lord Needed a Prophet is a collection of short stories and lessons about every president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including Gordon B. Hinckley. The collection has been carefully chosen and rewritten to accommodate the pre- and early teen reader's interest and reading ability.

Arrington has compiled a strong collection of accounts from the lives of the prophets so that the young reader can identify with them both as men and men of God. Each story has been condensed to sometimes a paragraph, nothing more than a page, which not only keeps the youth's attention, but serves as a ready reference for educational use. A young reader could read these simple sentences for a talk in church meetings, classes, and Family Home Evening, and teachers could use the well chosen vocabulary to bring alive lifestyles and events of the child's religious and cultural history. Families could use the stories to teach example and to create quizzes on the lives of these men.

Too often in the Church past presidents are sometimes relegated to only historical reference, sometimes for only doctrinal support. But their lives often can teach how the doctrine they preach is meant to be applied to the individual struggling to realize how precept can be made principle. A book like Arrington's gives a child a visual and vibrant account of how personal decisions affect one's life and happiness, without compromising individuality and diversity. Arrington emphasizes that these men-once-boys were ones who made decisions with the little knowledge they had at the time, decisions which taught them and prepared them for lifetimes of service. In a world where few heros are to be found easily, youth of the Church can look at these men to see reality at its best.

Several photographs of the families, environment, and faces of the presidents are included, facilitating the association between story and history for the young reader. Arrington also adds a helpful bibliography and some tables and graphs to compare the life spans and service of the presidents.

The only disappointment I had was that some of the photographs were printed too dark for easy contrast; the publisher could have fixed this before distribution.

For a family with pre-teen readers, for a teacher of youth, or as a gift, this book would well serve to introduce and refresh the lives of the prophets to each new generation.

-- 
Bruce J. Martin
Memphis TN
comstone@mem.net