When Jesus walked into the Temple complex and saw a teeming market, filled with sheep and doves and graft and corruption, Jesus knew He couldn’t walk past. “Should I stand by while they turn my Father’s house into a place of thievery?” he says. The answer, of course, is no.

And so the tables are literally turned. Money tumbles onto the cobblestones. Sheep make a quick getaway while they can. And members of the Sanhedrin look on, glowering.

“This is a place of worship!” Jesus shouts.

Peter loves his Master. But this bold move, in full view of Jerusalem’s religious authorities? It makes Peter nervous.

John stands beside Peter, beaming. “This is a good thing,” he reassures Peter. High time someone cleansed the Temple. High time someone took on the corrupt and craven elements in the Almighty’s house.

 Judas watches as a stray coin rolls by his feet. He steps on a piece of silver—as if to hide it—then quickly bends down and picks it off the stone, happy to add it to the disciples’ small coffers.

Or, perhaps, his own.

Jesus’ act is audacious. Impulsive. One more affront to the religious establishment. One more blemish on Jesus’ record. But it’s far from the worst offense: Already, word has reached Caiaphas, leader of the Jewish Sanhedrin, that Jesus has been making outrageous, blasphemous claims about being the Son of God. Unsubstantiated hearsay, Caiaphas realizes—for now. But such abhorrent allegations cannot go unchallenged.

If Jesus insists on turning over tables, then Jesus Himself must be turned over to the authorities. His claims must be investigated. And if deemed fact, this Jesus must die.

But while Caiaphas and his cadre of priests hope to bring a quick end to Jesus’ affrontery, only Jesus understands that His work, in many ways, is just beginning.

Forget flipping over a few tables: Christ means to turn the world itself on its ear.

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Growing up in Afghanistan, the educational opportunities afforded to her were very different than those of her male peers. For example, when her school acquired two hand-me-down computers, Roya and the other girls in her class were dismissed—forced to wait outside their classroom while the teacher instructed the boys in this new technology.

Situations like that were the norm, not the exception, for Roya. Girls were barred from learning subjects such as math, science and technology. In her culture, women’s education was an afterthought, at best. Many considered it shameful and actively sought to suppress teaching girls such skills.

But that opposition did nothing to quash Roya’s desire to learn. And learn, she did.

From humble origins fumbling through Windows XP in a local café to founding the first female-owned software company in Afghanistan years later, Roya faced and overcame adversity at every turn.

Years later, the Afghan culture remains closed to the idea of women being well-educated and working outside the home. Roya is understandably frustrated. What good is it to blaze a trail that no one can follow?

So, she starts offering computer classes for girls. The classes are successful, and the girls who attend learn valuable skills. Still, Roya sees their impact as merely a drop in a bucket. She’s been trying to demonstrate to Afghanistan the value women can offer as engineers and innovators, but her country has been slow to see.

She’ll have to show the world instead. But how? Roya has a plan: Form an Afghan all-girls robotics team to compete in events around the globe. “It will show our girls in a new light,” she tells her brother, Ali.

He expresses his doubts—no one from Afghanistan has ever done something like this, after all. Roya is undeterred, reminding her brother that “nothing ever happened unless someone dreamed it first.”

And so, Roya and Ali set out to find the most mechanically gifted girls they can recruit to the robotics team. Turns out, finding the girls is the easy part. It’s everything else that’s hard.

Good thing Roya has experience overcoming adversity. She—and her team—are going to need it.

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The nearly 100-foot-high statue of Christ the Redeemer stands atop Corcovado mountain, spreading its arms wide, as if to embrace the entire city. The sun beats down on Rio’s beaches—beaches so filled with sunbathers and tourists that it can be hard to see any sand. Millions of tourists flock to the city every year, and for some, it might seem as though this corner of Brazil is paradise. A place untouched by the worries of the world.

Ruben and Eunice Paiva know better.

Ruben was a left-leaning Brazilian congressman in the early 1960s. But when the government was toppled by a military coup in 1964, Ruben was forced out and into self-imposed exile. He and his family—wife Eunice and five kids—returned five years later, but the military dictatorship is in control. And by 1970, that dictatorship feels increasingly under pressure: Terrorists are kidnapping foreign ambassadors and exchanging them for the release of political prisoners. The country’s rulers want to stamp out this insurgency now. Left-leaning protestors, journalists and educators are increasingly scrutinized.

Oh, and one-time politicians, too.

They come for Ruben on a gloriously sunny day—a holiday, when the Paiva family might’ve well gone to the beach. Several men walk into the house, armed and prepared for trouble. They tell Ruben they’d like him to give a “deposition.” As Ruben dresses for the trip, his daughter, Nalu, asks if she could borrow one of his shirts.

“Do I have a choice, Nalu?” he says with a smile, while a stranger with a barely concealed gun looks on. “And where’s my kiss?”

Nalu, clueless about the room’s looming peril, gives him one. And she asks why he’s putting on a tie.

“I’m just helping these gentlemen,” Ruben say. “I’ll be back soon.”

But he wasn’t back. Not that day, or that night, or the next day. That deceptively mundane goodbye launched the family into a nightmare one can barely contemplate.

The sun seems to always shine on Rio. But on Jan. 20, 1971, the Paiva family entered into a dark, uncertain night.

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The communists said they hoped for that, too. And part of their vision—rooted in the atheistic ethos of communism—was to “re-educate” all religious citizens in antireligious campaigns.

It’s why they pull a pregnant Neng from her teaching job for questioning. She’s married a man from the British colony of Hong Kong, and her parents sent her to Christian schools for education, so they’re concerned about her commitment to Mao’s vision for China.

Neng adamantly tells them that, though she may have gotten swept up in a Christian bandwagon when she was younger, she grew out of her beliefs as she got older.

But as she thinks about those beliefs she had had as a child, Neng begins to realize that, though distant, perhaps she still does believe in the Christian God.

“Are you a Christian?” A government official demands.

Slowly, the thoughts in her head racing, Neng opens her mouth to respond.

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A rabbit was the first to go. Enraptured by the sight of the tiny purple meteorite, which had just crashed into its enclosure, the bunny took a bite. It wasn’t long before the once adorable critter transformed into a fanged, gummy-like zombie. And with one bite with those sharp teeth, other animals at Colepepper Zoo transformed, too.

The chicks and sheep went next.

Down went the goats.

Then, they came for the monkeys.

Pretty soon, the whole zoo was gone—save for a wolf, mountain lion, capybara, ostrich, lemur and proboscis monkey.

But the gummy zombies are coming for them, too.

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Why?

Who knows? It’s the future. And in this future, there lives a powerful witch that seemingly everyone wants dead. But this witch, Gray Alys, lives on.

Part of her longevity is because of her magical ability to make eye contact and force anything—man, zombie or feral beast—to see what she wishes them to see. Her other saving grace is the requirement that she must grant any and every wish that someone asks of her.

“I refuse no one,” she will murmur when asked. And people always ask, even though her expression immediately conveys a bitter truth: wishes always lead to one cataclysmic disaster or another.

So, when the city’s Queen approaches with a request to gain the shapeshifting ability of a werewolf, Alys dutifully replies, “I refuse no one.”

But why would the Queen want such an ability? Who knows? And when the Queen’s captain and secret lover later asks that Alys fail in that request, Alys once again declares that she cannot refuse him.

Somehow Gray Alys is required to fulfill requests that even might oppose one another. While in a magic trance, she sees a man who will guide her to that resolution. He’s a large and gnarly gunslinger named Boyce.

This massive mercenary will lead her into the Lost Lands. They will find a werewolf there. And they must also keep one step ahead of the foul crusader-like churchmen that want Gray Alys’ skin.

Oh, and Alys isn’t aware (or is she?) that Boyce also happens to be one of the Queen’s many lovers. He might even be the sire of the child that’s newly growing in her womb.

Oh, what a twisted web this witch now clings to.

But it leads to a conclusion that Gray Alys cannot refuse. Why? Only she knows for sure.

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Proud. Drunken. Womanizing.

Those words all fit him quite well. He might even claim them. He’s also quite competitive.

And that competitive side of him always tends to peek its head up at the wrong time. Especially when Caligula is around, and he’s had too many cups of wine. Yes, it’s definitely unwise for a Roman soldier to purposely ruffle the feathers of Emperor Tiberius’ regent.

But Caligula is such a vile, self-indulgent man that he makes Marcellus look like a saint.

So Marcellus can’t keep himself from goading and prodding the man when he pompously parades into the slave trade. And soon after … Marcellous finds himself punitively posted to some barren outpost out in the desert. A dust bowl called Judaea.

The only good aspect of the whole affair is the fact that Marcellus reconnected with an old friend back at that Roman auction. Well, perhaps she’s more than a friend. Could he say that he once loved the pretty Diana? Perhaps. Perhaps.

In any case, Diana said she would talk to Tiberius on his behalf about Marcellus’ situation. All Marcellus needs to do is hold on for a while, and he’ll be transferred back to civilization before he knows it. And he’ll be returning to Diana. Yes, that prospect is sounding sweeter by the day.

So, Marcellus spends his time sweating and drinking. And waiting. When he’s finally called before the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, the man looks very disturbed. Not at Marcellus, but at the fact that he can’t seem to get his hands clean.

There is this magician in the city who’s been giving the governor fits. The Jews—well, many of them—call this bewildering person a “king.” And all Pilate wants is to see the man called Jesus done away with. So, he tells Marcellus to simply crucify this criminal. Then he can be gone, and Marcellus can leave this terrible place.

Marcellus has never killed anyone in this manner, but a few extra cups of wine will surely get him through.

The rest is a blur. Blood on his hands. Dying men breathing their last. Gambling with the Centurion guards.

But there’s something strange about this man they call Jesus. He bleeds and hangs on the cross, to be sure, but it’s as if He calls the time of his death. “Father, forgive them,” the man cries out as Marcellus gazes up at him. “For they know not what they do.” And then He dies.

Marcellus feels the shift before he sees it. The day slides out of gear, the sky grows black. The clouds swell. The people standing around quiver, look up and cry. And then the rains begin to fall.

Marcellus grabs this Jesus’ cast-off robe—for he had won it rolling dice—but when he puts it over his shoulders it burns, it scalds. Is the robe cursed? Or is it something else? Is the pain he feels outside him, or in?

On the way back to Capri, Marcellus falls ill and thrashes in nightmares. And when he reports his story to the superstitious old emperor, Tiberius, the ruler and his soothsayers quickly see what must be happening. Marcellus’ agonies are surely a curse, caused by the foul dead magician and his robe.

Marcellus must return to the parched land of Judaea and find that accursed robe. That is his foresight, his destiny. That will be his salvation, they declare.

And in a way … they’re absolutely right.

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And no, it wasn’t a long-lost relative or a neighbor from down the lane asking for a cup of sugar. This was a messenger from God, an honest-to-goodness angel. And the angel came with news: The young woman would give birth to a son.

It was surprising and seemingly impossible news, considering that the young woman was a virgin.

But in time, the woman did miraculously become pregnant. She traveled to Bethlehem with her new husband. There was no room for them in the inn, so they had to stay among the animals. And that is where the virgin gave birth to her son.

It’s the beginning of an incredible story—some would say the greatest story ever told. It’s a tale of miracles and wonder: more angelic visitations, supernatural healings and the ultimate sacrifice. The woman’s son grows into a man. But more than that, he is fully man and fully God. He lives a perfect, sinless life, preaching and teaching and proclaiming the Kingdom of God. He is betrayed, killed and buried, but he rises to new life, conquering death and paving the way to eternal life for all who hope in him.

Maybe you’ve heard of this story.

It’s the account of Jesus of Nazareth.

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She’d been born in Azerbaijan (then part of the U.S.S.R.). Her own two daughters were born there, too. Her husband, Ivan, works as a Soviet rocket scientist. She herself is a respected school administrator in Baku, Azerbaijan, and a proud member of the Communist Party.

But ethnically, she’s Armenian. And in the eyes of many, that makes her an outsider.

Nothing new there, either. She’d been used to the occasional side-eye, the derogatory remark, the infrequent burst of ethnic tension. As long as Moscow was in charge, those issues felt minor.

But in 1988, Moscow’s power wanes. The Soviet Union is fraying at its edges. And many former countries—or would-be countries—now strain at the seams, reaching for independence.

And in Azerbaijan, Violetta and her family don’t feel at home anymore—all because they’re Armenian.

Bricks shatter the windows of Armenian businesses. People carry signs promising death to Armenians. The school closes its doors to the Petrosyan girls—a sympathetic teacher telling Violetta that they’re simply not safe at the school anymore.

But it’s only when the shooting begins—executions of Armenians right in the streets—that the Petrosyans flee, running straight into Russia proper. There they hope for another chance at home.

But they find a cold welcome in Volvograd, Russia. Housing is dismal. Jobs are scarce—at least for Armenians. The only hint of friendliness they find is inside a ramshackle church, and that’s hardly a suitable refuge for the secular Petrosyans.

Sure, Violetta and Ivan have a place to stay in Volvograd. The apartment comes with walls, a roof—even heat sometimes. And if they need a bathroom, well, it’s just down the hall.

But a home? They’re still looking.

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Grace is a misfit twin. She and her brother, Gilbert, lost their mother at birth. Grace’s mom was a malacologist, or, in Grace’s mind, a snail scientist. In a twisted sense of symmetry, Grace recounts how female snails must biologically die to successfully give birth.

From the moment her mother passes away, Grace has felt a connection to snails. In fact, apart from Gilbert, her pet snails are the only living things giving her life purpose.

Grace and Gilbert’s father, who had been an aspiring French street performer, sadly became a paraplegic due to a roadside car accident. He eventually passes away due to sleep apnea, which is a bitter example of Memoir of a Snail’s comedic tone.

Orphaned and separated from her brother in an unfortunate foster care decision, Grace ends up with a new set of parents more interested in joining a nudist colony than raising their foster daughter.

Moving through the badlands and suburbs of Australia, Grace ends up confined in her room, while Gilbert arrives at an apple farm that resembles a religious cult. Though they exist on separate sides of the Australian continent, Grace and Gilbert remain linked. Their story and hopeful reunion is recalled through future, older Grace’s narration, which is mainly focused on the cast of characters who wade in and out of her life.

Grace claims she’s an optimist—a perpetually glass half-full kind of girl. Yet as her glum disposition settles in, she becomes a hoarder, addicted to food, and reclusive to the point of sleeping entire weeks away with her snails and a local eccentric named Pinky as her only companions.

As Grace trudges through the doldrums of her life, she does her best to learn lessons from her snail friends. Admittedly, stop-motion animation provides an effective medium for the themes at play. Grace’s epiphanies arrive when she is patient, thoughtful, and measured. To face her life’s problems though, she’ll need to change who she is.

If only she could learn how to come out of her shell…

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