Meals From Mars by Ben Sciacca

Jim and Malik confront their own prejudices as they simultaneously experience God’s providence in a dangerous, complicated situation in this modern parable for teens and adults.

Meals From Mars: A Parable of Prejudice and Providence by Ben Sciacca. NavPress, 2017. 224 pages.

Reading Level: Teens/Adults

Recommended For: Teens and adults, ages 15 and up

Against his worried wife’s wishes, Jim (a White man) heads to the ‘hood to deliver food to his church custodian’s family. Wilma (a Black woman) has faithfully worked for their church for years, and Jim’s Sunday school class decided to take her under their wing, providing food on a regular basis for Wilma, her grandson Malik, and her other grandchildren. Jim makes his delivery and then realizes he needs gas before driving the long commute back to Stone Brook, his prestigious neighborhood on the other side of town.

Eighteen-year-old Malik left for Shop ‘n’ Snack, the corner convenience store, to pick up a few things for Wilma, just before Jim had arrived with the food. He’s packing because he’s afraid of the neighborhood thugs likely to be at the store. True to his expectations, the thugs enter the store, rough up the attendant (Habib, a mentor of sorts to Malik) and then turn towards Malik. Terrified, Malik sprints for the door….

Before Malik or Jim realize what’s happened, Malik is holding his gun to Jim and screaming for Jim to drive! Just drive!

Malik and Jim end up in a hunting cabin outside of town, hiding out from law enforcement and potential thugs. Law enforcement officers assume that Malik is guilty of car-jacking, in addition to being the one responsible for the convenience store break-in. Jim’s wife is frantic. Wilma is frantic. And a certain Black detective is frantic because he knows that many of the people involved in this situation are operating out of long-standing prejudices and fear.

A parable, by definition, is a story that illustrates or teaches a lesson. Meals From Mars tells us that right from the get go: this is a book designed to instruct and teach, even as it entertains. And teach and entertain it does. From the beginning, readers understand that all the participants in this story are operating under assumptions that aren’t always based on fact. Their assumptions fail to consider individual persons instead of general, assumed statistics. Then again, stereotypes never do. Jim and Malik have some hard conversations while they’re holed up in the hunting cabin, conversations many of us never have with people from different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds than ourselves. Both come to realize that the “other side” has its own issues to deal with; they realize that both of them have misunderstood the other.

Meals From Mars is a helpful tool in the ongoing discussions about race, social justice, and community outreach. It would make an excellent fictional accompaniment to a book like Under Our Skin. It’s worth asking your teens, if you read this with them, where Jim and Malik are finding their identity. As Christians, our identity must be first and foremost in Christ. What are we tempted to place our identity in, if not Christ? (Our culture really wants us to identify with race, gender, and positions of power or victimhood, instead of looking to Christ!) After that starting point, how have our present, earthly circumstances affected us? What opportunities for service do we have? How might we be misunderstanding other people? When have we taken the “easy” way out and simply given money instead of trying to get to know someone we’re hoping to serve?

Considerations:

• While there’s a lot of slang in this book, there’s remarkably little objectionable language.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5

• Worldview/Moral Rating: 4 out of 5
• Literary/Artistic Rating: 4 out of 5

Read more about our ratings here.

Related Reading From Redeemed Reader

• A Review: Under Our Skin by Benjamin Watson (highly recommended)
• A Resource: Interview with Judah Ben, author of I am Kai’ Ro (an urban adaptation of The Pilgrim’s Progress; Judah Ben is the pen name for Ben Sciacca)
• A Resource: Books About Race and Racism
• A Review: Creative God, Colorful Us by Trillia Newbell (for middle grades, but a terrific book on this topic)

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