The Shoebox Bible

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

This is a slight, sketchy memoir of a childhood lived in poverty in a
single-parent home during the 1930s and ’40s. The story centres on a
shoebox full of passages from the Bible, hand-copied on bits of scrap
paper by the author’s hard-working mother. By sifting through and
rereading the biblical quotes his mother chose to transcribe, the author
attempts to understand her life and find meaning in his own. The
insights gained are few in number and appear to be of little relevance
to anyone other than the author. His conclusion is that “we are, each
of us, a story told by God, a story of great sadness and great joy, but
one that ends always in glory.”

Bradley, who has attained a measure of recognition as a children’s
author and contributor to CBC radio, writes like a precocious child,
wallowing in his mastery of an extensive vocabulary and projecting an
obsession with his own cleverness.

A sprinkle of black-and-white snapshots from his family album is
included, perhaps in an effort to rev up the emotional impact of the
memoir. The result, however, is a strengthening of the who-cares
impression generated by the text.