The H-Bomb and the Jesus Rock

It’s Saturday, october 27, 1962, the darkest day of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Two children, Ralph and his little sister Lou, are searching for empty bottles in a vacant lot when they discover a rock which—to them, at least—looks quite a lot like Jesus. Ralph immediately declares it a Possible Holy Object. And, since his fondest wish is to be a “boy-in-a-story,” he earnestly places himself and Lou—now his “sidekick”—in a tale featuring the “sacred rock” as the key to nothing less than saving the world from nuclear annihilation.

But there’s another boy, Toby—older, shrewder, and quite a bit larger—who has very different plans for the rock, intending to use it as a lucrative sideshow exhibit, complete with fliers: Is it Jesus? Or just a rock? You decide! Hovering over the children and their small-scale war is the general anxiety and dread attending the most perilous moment in our history. As we approach the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, John Manderino’sThe H-bomb and the Jesus Rock provides a unique, children’s-eye view of that near-Armageddon.