The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.

This is a book I picked up at a book sale and it has been on my bookshelf for months if not years! Flicking through the pages I had picked it up one or two times previously but never got round to reading it. It didn’t look too interesting.

Then one evening I was going to bed and I always read last thing in bed and hadn’t a book that I was reading, so I picked up this older book.( pub. 1998)

Well, what a surprise it was! I got hooked pretty quickly on the plot line and in fact found it a very interesting book. Just one of those books you can’t put down.

Here is a start to get you interested.

In 1958, a very devout, evangelistic, Baptist preacher decides his calling is to be a missionary so he takes his wife and 4 daughters to the Belgian Congo.They are all quite unprepared for this adventure. The girls don’t particularly want to go and even the mother is apprehensive but Father say so and so of course , that's what happens.

They eventually arrive and find the small amount of modern things they have bought with them are not much help in the jungle. They have to learn to adjust to a new land, new food, and a new language. Father knows best  but isn’t learning to adapt as well as his young daughters. Mother quickly resents being placed into this setting and having to work so hard and struggle with day to day living. What follows in the book is the story of their lives in the three following decades  plus the events of historical importance with the split up of the Belgium Congo to become independant and all the political disturbances that occurred. The family eventually all decide to go their own way but the telling of their story is fascinating and well told.

it was well worth reading.