A retelling of a biblical story by a double Carnegie Medallist. Taken from the Apocrypha, this is the tale of Tobias and the angel, told by Tobias's dog, who offers a dry commentary on the events. Tobit, Tobias's father, is a kind man who loses his money. Worse still, he goes blind. Tobias is sent to get some money he left with a friend in a faraway city. A man named Azarias says he will go with Tobias, who happily agrees. The dog is uncertain about this arrangement. Were those wings he saw? On the journey, Azarias says and does lots of things that Tobias accepts but the dog finds strange. But he's only a dog, so he says nothing. Through the advice of Azarias, Tobias defeats a demon and wins himself a bride, Sarah. Raguel, her father, is overjoyed, if amazed. He's already dug Tobias's grave! While the wedding feast takes place, Azarias collects the money from Tobit's friend. Then they set off for home, where Tobit is cured of his blindness and Azarias reveals himself as the holy angel Raphael. "I knew I was right about the wings," says the dog. Jan Mark has been awarded the Carnegie Medal twice and has also won the Guardian Award and the Observer Teenage Fiction Prize.
Her titles include "Thunder and Lightnings" and "They Do Things Differently There", "Fur, Strat and Chatto" (winner of the 1990 Mother Goose Award), "Fun With Mrs Thumb", "This Bowl of Earth", "The Snow Maze", "Taking the Cat's Way Home" and "Great Frog and Mighty Mouse". Rachel Merriman was a runner-up for the Pan Macmillan Student Prize, and "The Tale of Tobias" is her first book.
- ISBN10 0744547695
- ISBN13 9780744547696
- Publish Date 13 February 1997 (first published 30 November 1995)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 14 June 2005
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Walker Books Ltd
- Edition New edition
- Format Paperback
- Pages 31
- Language English