The story of a young boy's delight in his pet black rabbit, Shadrach.

** Winner of the New Zealand Children's Book of the Year 1990** A classic junior fiction favourite from multi-award winning New Zealand children's author, Joy Cowley. Shadrach is a very old circus-trained Clydesdale horse, and the favourite family pet. When Hannah discovers that Shadrach has been sold to a dog food factory, she decides to mount a heroic rescue and enlists the help of her two younger brothers. From the beginning their plans go seriously wrong. By the time they've argued with the repulsive Wuff Stuff man, hidden Shadrach in a church and a caravan, and floated him on a mussel barge they're in desperate need of rescuing themselves.

This is the story of how an illiterate black man from Virginia found himself to be the catalyst of a dramatic episode of rebellion and legal wrangling before the Civil War.

The Book of Shadrach appears to be the oldest book of the ancient Samarian prophets, written between 880 and 870 BC. The Book of Shadrach predicts the fall of the Egyptian and Assyrian Empires, meaning they must have still been around at the time, as well as the coming of the prophet ‘Elijah the Tishbite,’ who was the prophet Elijah the Masoretic books of Kings and Diḇrê Hayyāmîm (Septuagint’s 3rd and 4th Kingdoms, and 2nd Paralipomenon), and whose life is dated to between 900 and 849 BC. The Book of Shadrach also provides a general description of the state of Edom as having been defeated by the Judeans. This matches the political reality of Elijah’s time, when Edom was subject to the Kingdom of Judah, between 930 and 870 BC. Edom was a kingdom southeast of Judah from at least the 1200s BC until 125 BC when the Hasmonean dynasty conquered the kingdom. Edom was recorded as being a dependency of the Kingdom of Judah between 930 and 870 BC, but then rebelled against Judah, and does not appear to have been conquered outright by the Judeans again until the Hasmonean dynasty. At some point before the Greeks conquered the Persians, the Book of Shadrach became part of the Twelve, or as Christians would later call them, the books of the minor prophets. These books span several hundred years of Israelite history, and generally identify the time period each book is set in by mentioning the king who was ruling the land at the time. The earliest, other than Shadrach, is the Book of Hosea, who lived “in the days of Uzziah, and Jotham, and Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam II, son of Jehoash, king of Israel,” who ruled the Judah between approximately 783 and 687 BC. These kings were also recorded in the Assyrian records from the era, and are considered to be historical people, while King Jeroboam II, the son of Jehoash, ruled Samaria (Northern Kingdom of Israel) for 41 years sometime between 793 and 746 BC. The most recently composed of the twelve books to identify a ruler were the books of Haggai and Zachariah, both set in the “second year of King Darius.” King Darius I was the third ‘King of Kings’ (Emperor) of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, reigning from 522 BC until his death in 486 BC, which would place the date of Haggai and Zachariah to circa 520 BC. As the Book of Shadrach is set earlier than the rest of the twelve, it should have been the first of the twelve, but seems to have always been placed at the end. The Greek translation of the Dodeka, made at the library of Alexandria circa 190 BC, and the Masoretic Texts which were copied by the Masorites between 400 and 1000 AD, use different sequences for the twelve books, however, in both cases Shadrach was at the end. In both cases, the Book of Shadrach has also been split into two books, the seconds half of the Book of Zachariah and the Book of Malachi. As the Book of Zachariah is set during the Persian Era, in the second year of Darius, which was 520 BC, this book cannot have also been written centuries earlier, when Egypt and Assyria were enemies of Samaria, and Judah ruled Edom. The Book of ‘Malachi’ is even more confusing, as it is anonymous. The name Malachi is simply a corruption of the Hebrew and Canaanite word for ‘messengers.’ The fact that the Book of ‘Malachi’ is anonymous, has been commented on for more than two thousand years, however, most modern Christian churches choose to accept the prophet that wrote it had the remarkably unlikely name of ‘Messengers’ rather than admit they don’t know who wrote the book. It is unclear why Shadrach was misplaced among the twelve, however, appears to have been in its current position, divided between Zachariah and Malachi by the beginning of the Greek rule of Judea, suggesting it happened during the Persian era.

This set includes all five books of the Laurel Shadrach series: Purity Reigns, Totally Free, Equally Yoked, Absolutely Worthy, and Finally Sure. In Purity Reigns, Laurel Shadrach is the daughter of a preacher, the oldest and only sister of three brothers. The story takes the reader through Laurel's senior year of high school as she deals with the struggles of being a teenager. Her desire is to stay pure, but will her desire to be with her boyfriend be stronger? In Totally Free, Laurel Shadrach is in her second semester of her senior year and things seem to be falling into place. She's dating a Christian guy and her friendships are back on track. But right around the corner lurks the temptation of drugs and alcohol. As she witnesses their destruction on those around her, Laurel realizes that alcohol and drugs only bring temporary relief. To be totally free, you must turn your life over to Christ and rest in Him. In Equally Yoked, Laurel Shadrach is off to college in Georgia. There she meets Payton Skky, one of her new suitemates. As she struggles to adjust to the pressures of college, Laurel is confronted with difficult decisions regarding friend relationships, alcohol use, and staying pure with her boyfriend. Will Laurel choose to follow God or will she bow to temptations and peer pressure? In Absolutely Worthy, Laurel, still haunted by the difficult and sometimes tragic events of her senior year, struggles to adjust to college life. Tormented by dreams of the past, she reaches out for Christ to give her peace even in her innermost thoughts. Dealing with the choice between Foster, who is a Christian, and Branson, who has pressured her to have sex, only further complicates her walk with the Lord and her adjustment to college life. Will Laurel come to see her absolute worth in the eyes of God as most important or will she bow to the pressures of her peers? In Finally Sure, all Laurel has ever wanted is peace in her soul, but it's been so elusive. In this final book in the series, Laurel finally decides once and for all that she will pursue a Christian life. Laurel must re-evaluate her relationships to conform them to God's requirements. Will she finally find true, pure love with Charlie? Although things aren't totally smooth, she learns along the way that as long as she follows God, she will be okay.

A fresh, biblical approach to personal support raising for full time Christian workers.

Features three novels that center around a New Zealand girl, her brothers, and an old circus-trained Clydesdale that becomes the family pet.