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It is rare but wonderful that two creative people, one a writer and one an artist, are joined in lifelong matrimony. It is even less often found that they work together and produce lovely contributions to culture. May McNeer, the writer wife and Lynd Ward, the artist husband, were married for almost 60 years until his death in 1985. They produced together, and individually, many outstanding books and art in 20th century America. For example, May McNeer wrote three of the famous Landmark book series - The California Gold Rush, War Chief of the Seminoles, and The Alaska Gold Rush. She wrote and he illustrated many children’s books together, including the two to be reviewed below. Lynd Ward illustrated books by many other authors, produced many original works of art, and is considered a father of the graphic novel. He even wrote a few of his own books, winning the Caldecott Medal for The Biggest Bear, which tells a delightful story in words and pictures.
The two books, Martin Luther and John Wesley, written by May McNeer and illustrated by Lynd Ward, are very nice biographies of these key figures in the Reformation and church history. I would say that both books are at a middle school level, could be appreciated by a high school reader, and could successfully be read aloud to elementary school children. Martin Luther translated the Bible into German, giving ordinary people a chance to read God’s Word for themselves, and which also set the course for the modern German language. God used Luther to free the German people and ultimately many others from the tyranny of the state dictating your religious beliefs and from the tyranny of corrupt ecclesiastical leaders. John Wesley, who was not allowed to preach in the churches of Great Britain, turned to open-air preaching and eventually he, and the Methodist movement he generated, brought the gospel to millions of people around the world, including the United States. Many of the people he preached to in outside venues would never darken the door of a church. It is believed that, under God’s providence, his ministry reformed and saved England from the bloodshed and atheism of its own home-grown French Revolution.