A few years ago, I got the Beginning Reader’s Bible as a review for my blog. I loved it at the time and am happy to say it has become an invaluable book on our shelf.
The illustrations are not only breath-taking, they are detailed and accurate. Well, at least more accurate than a white Jesus and a skinny, gorgeous Mary. (I dunno, she mighta been skinny and gorgeous.) They depict realistic skin-tones, clothing, housing, festivals and more.
The cool part of this book is that it’s actual Scripture. They’ve taken stories from the Bible and cut and pasted the verses to make them fit concisely into a story. For example, the story of Hannah and Samuel is in 1 Samuel chapters 1-3. Well, that would take a million pages in a kids’ picture book. So, the story begins in Chapter 1 with verses 1-3, skips to verse 9-12, then 14, then 17-20. There are verses and chapter numbers so you know what you’re reading and to help kids get used to reading with verse notations.
I think it’s really clever. Plus, when you want to tell your kids the actual story and not just the storybook version, this is a good book to come to because it’s done the work of making it kid-friendly for you.
What’s fun is that there is a Bible memory verse in each story (usually from Psalms or Proverbs) and a fun family activity to do to go along with the story. We’ve done a few of them–and they’re pretty good. I’m kinda picky about family devotions because they always seem good in theory and then never really work. But I like these.
This is a book that will grow with your children–when they are young, they’ll love the pictures. When they begin to read, they can read it for themselves. When they are old enough to memorize and have family devotions, that’s built in, too.
Do your kids love to hear the real stories from the Bible?
affiliate links included
