Joseph and the Three Gifts: An Angel's story

by Brian Sibley

Although we are all familiar with Joseph - from a legion of retellings of the Christmas story - he remains, for many, a shadowy figure about whom we know very little and who is rarely given much thought, if any. This beautiful meditative fable, imagined as it might be told by the archangel Gabriel, helps us to understand who Joseph was and how he might have felt about the part he was called to play in the Greatest Story Ever Told. Joseph and the Three Gifts follows Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem, in hiding in Egypt and a return to his carpentry in Nazareth as Jesus grows from boy to man to messiah. And it asks what Joseph might have done with the Magi's gifts of frankincense, gold and myrrh. A wonderful story for all ages, perfect for Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter.

128 pages, Hardcover

Published September 17, 2019

About the author

Brian Sibley is an English writer, broadcaster, and award-winning dramatist whose work has brought beloved stories to life for readers, listeners, and filmgoers alike. The author of over 100 hours of radio drama and hundreds of documentaries and features for the BBC, he is best known for his acclaimed 1981 radio adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, co-written with Michael Bakewell, as well as dramatizations of C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast novels, and Richard Adams’s Watership Down.
Sibley has also written numerous original plays for radio, presented popular BBC programmes including Kaleidoscope and Talking Pictures, and produced documentaries on figures ranging from Lewis Carroll and Ray Bradbury to Julie Andrews and Walt Disney. His contributions to broadcasting have earned him accolades such as the Sony Radio Award and the BBC Audio Drama Award for Best Adaptation.
In print, Sibley is the author of many acclaimed film “making of” books, including Harry Potter: Film Wizardry, The Lord of the Rings: The Making of the Movie Trilogy, and Peter Jackson: A Filmmaker’s Journey, as well as companion volumes for The Hobbit films, The Golden Compass, and Disney classics. His literary works range from Shadowlands to children’s books like The Frightful Food Feud and Osric the Extraordinary Owl, with stories appearing in official Winnie-the-Pooh collections.
A noted Disney historian, Sibley has contributed essays to The Walt Disney Film Archives and recorded DVD commentaries for classic films. He is the editor of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Fall of Númenor, winner of the Tolkien Society’s Best Book award in 2023.
Sibley has served as President and Chair of The Lewis Carroll Society and is an honorary member of The Magic Circle, the Tolkien Society, and The Children’s Books History Society.

Reviews

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely retelling of the story of Jesus with which we are all so familiar.

[Caroline · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't finish it. I felt that the narrating character---the angel Gabriel----was talking down to me a bit, so I gave up after a few pages.