Writer Cara J. Stevens and illustrator Amanda Brack team up for the exciting comic-book style collection Superheroes of the Bible: Action and Adventure Stories about Real-Life Heroes (Good Books). Kids will love these action-packed adventures featuring great heroes of the Bible. In this interview, Cara J. Stevens explains why these historical accounts still resonate centuries later, the challenges of collaborating for this book, and how working on a Bible collection compares to her work with licensed characters from Sesame Street and SpongeBob SquarePants…
What inspired retelling these familiar Bible accounts in this format?
I write a lot about adventurers and superheroes for kids. It’s my favorite type of writing, because I love inspiring young readers to dream big, achieve more, and reach for the stars. When my publisher suggested writing about superheroes of the Bible, I was inspired and excited. Here was a whole world of stories where people had faith and did the right thing and achieved more than anyone believed was possible!
Cara, what is it about these people in the Bible that still resonates with modern readers all these centuries later?
Almost every superhero story is a tale of good versus evil and often features an underdog beating the odds through making good and difficult choices. The more I looked at the stories from the Old and New Testament, the more it became clear that these are the true original superhero tales.
What were the challenges of collaborating to create this book?
When I set out to write down the stories, it was hard to choose ones that were age-appropriate and inspiring. In some areas, we had too much to choose from. I also wanted to be sure to include more female heroines, and women weren’t always given starring roles in the Bible tales.
I started my research with the Old Testament, which are the stories I grew up with. The New Testament stories were all mostly new to me. I ended up spending a lot more time researching both, because I enjoyed discovering all the stories and reimagining them as superhero tales that both entertained and guided young readers.
What do you hope that readers come away with after reading Superheroes of the Bible?
I hope kids and their parents find enjoyment and inspiration in these stories and carry the stories with them through their lives.
You’ve worked with a lot of popular children’s characters before, including Sesame Street and SpongeBob SquarePants. With these retellings from the Bible, how do you balance between showing them as relevant to children without making them just another set of “characters”?
When you learn traditional stories as a young child, you internalize them and eventually they become part of you, guiding you when you need inspiration and consoling you when you need comfort. Bible stories are different from licensed character stories, which are often based on archetypes found in the Bible but do not guide readers with life lessons or rules for behavior.
What are the best things that readers can do to support their favorite authors?
If you like a book by a certain author, search online to see what else they have written. Goodreads and Amazon are great places to learn about your favorite authors. Many authors also have a personal website that gives more information about their books and helps you contact them directly.
I love hearing from readers. I get messages every week on my Facebook author page from parents and kids telling me what they like about the books they’ve read and asking me when my next books are coming out. I really like it when kids ask me questions about being a writer or about the different topics I write about.
One parent even asked if I could call his daughter for an interview project she was doing for school. We chatted on the phone and talked about writing, playing video games, playing soccer, our families, and where we lived. It was a lot of fun.
Visit Cara J. Stevens’ author page here: https://www.familyfiction.com/authors/cara-j-stevens
Superheroes of the Bible: Action and Adventure Stories about Real-Life Heroes
Good Books
Cara J. Stevens and Amanda Brack