Name That Hymn Blog

Like I said, here’s one last book review. Don’t worry, I wasn’t asked by a publisher to write this. In fact, there’s no publisher for this book because it’s been out of print for a long time.

My child is at the age where she’s a voracious reader and reading some pretty advanced stuff, but not quite at the point where she’s reading the actual Bible on her own (let’s face it, even we adults have a hard time getting through the genealogies and skin diseases to get to the juicy stuff).

When she was smaller I bought her books like Sally Lloyd-Jones’s excellent Jesus Storybook Bible and the oh-so-cute Tiny Truths Illustrated Bible, both of which I still strongly recommend for children from around toddler-age to 2nd grade.

I came across The Children’s Bible on the back of a bookshelf in my church, collecting dust for years. I faintly recall reading this as a child (probably the exact same copy).

I opened it and was blown away. Unlike contemporary Children’s Bible storybooks that dumb down the stories and focus more on the pictures, this book, published in 1972, actually focuses on the text, with the illustrations being high quality and detailed but not the star of the page.

I love the fact that it doesn’t just focus on Noah’s Ark and Joseph’s coat and David’s slingshot, but actually pretty comprehensively covers the entire Old Testament and New Testament Try finding the slaying of Sisera, Naboth’s vineyard, or the anointing of Jehu in a Bible book today, even one made for teens.

The reading level is simple-to-moderate but never simplistic. A don’t think a first grader could read it on his or her own, but would certainly understand and be engaged if an adult read it to them. By fourth or fifth grade, they should be able to read it on their own, and even as an adult I find reading the stories almost as instructive and much more accessible than reading the same account in the Bible. The stories were reviewed by an editorial board which consisted of a Rabbi, a Theologian, and a Reverend.

From what I can tell, most of their text is very closely adapted from the Bible itself, which I’m hoping will serve as a nice pathway for my daughter to go from reading children’s books to reading the Bible.

Unfortunately, it appears that this book has been out of print for a very long time. But one very nice thing about Amazon is that you’ll find used copies on sale as Generation X gets older and starts to find and sell things we find in our attics.

Here’s the Amazon listing. If this particular listing is being shown as sold out, just do an Amazon search for “The Children’s Bible” and look for a listing with the cover pictured to the left.

If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to find a used copy on Amazon (and if you’re really lucky, you’ll be able to find this Deluxe Edition with a leather-like cover).

As always when buying things from Amazon, you’ll want to gravitate towards reviews that say “Used – Good” or higher. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to find one around the $30 price point.

I’m surprised at how there aren’t more books like this available for children. On the one extreme I see full Bibles that get decorated with cartoony pictures and on the other extreme I see simplistic retellings of basic Bible stories where the text almost seems to get in the way of their flashy design and illustrations.

Overall, I had to go back 50 years to find a book that was appropriate for my 8 year old, and I trust this will last us for a good few years.

Okay, I got my last book review out of my system, now to work on a real blog post.

It’s been years since I was in high school, but I can still remember what it was like when I graduated. There was the sadness of having to leave old friends, and the anxiety of having to make new ones. There was the loneliness of leaving home, but the thrill of being independent. When trouble hit, you couldn’t always run straight to mom or dad like you used to. You had to to manage your own time, money, and emotions.

My niece is graduating high school this year. I’ve given her a lot of funny gifts over the years, but this year I wanted to get her something really meaningful as she starts her own journey. God’s Promises for Graduates fits that bill. It’s a compact sized book, just a little bigger than a smartphone, just a little smaller than a tablet. It’s hardcover and comes in different colors–I got hers in pink. It has thin pages like a Bible and silver foil edges. The words “Class of 2019” are imprinted on the cover.

Inside, the book is filled with Bible verses, arranged by topics. “What to Do When You Need…”, “What to Do When You Feel…” “What the Bible Has to Say About”, “What Jesus Means to You”, “What to Do When You Are”, and “Truth from the Bible About”. It has just about every need state, emotion, problem, covered. It’s a great book for a young adult to have handy, whether he or she is alone at school or far from home. For example, under “What to do when you feel…lonely”, it lists out Hebrews 13:5, Psalm 40:1-3, John 14:23, Psalm 68:5-6, Psalm 41:40, Psalm 139:7-12, and Matthew 11:28-30. The editor of the book decided to use mostly NKJV, but in select cases it uses NLT and NIV.

I remember when my brother, my sister, and I went to college, our mother gave each of us an Our Daily Bread Bible verse promise box. My brother told me how when we was alone far away at school he used to pick one verse a day, read it, and put the date on it each day. It’s neat to be able to give the same sort of thing to his little girl, who will now be going off on her own.

Taste and See, by Margaret Feinberg, is a book about a topic near and dear to my heart–foods in the Bible.

Feinberg is a noted Bible teacher and speaker who has sold over one million books, including Fight Back with Joy and Wonderstruck. She’s a frequent speaker at Christian conferences. 

In this book Feinberg takes you through different food groups in the Bible: Fish, Figs, Bread, Salt, Olives, and Lamb. She writes about her travels to Israel, the Holy Land, and the Mediterranean where she tries to learn more about each food; how native people pick, catch, and prepare these foods, how many of them continue to follow ancient traditions and customs to this day, how these foods still influence the local culture and the world today. She talks about places in the Bible that mention the foods and reviews their spiritual significance. 

I admit, I was a little envious of Margaret, because this is precisely the kind of trip I would love to take. But I know realistically I can’t. So I’m thrilled that she’s taken the trip and has documented it so I can experience it vicariously. I also love how she’s included a number of recipes–the main ingredient of these recipes are the very food she’s talking about from the Bible. In some cases (like her recipe for matzo), the recipes are likely very close to what they would have eaten in Bible times; in other cases the recipes are more modern, but still delicious. (By the way, a few years ago, I became a bit obsessed with trying to a cookbook that let me cook food just like they ate in Bible times. The best I could find (and a pretty good one) was Loaves and Fishes by Malvina Kinard). 

If there’s one gripe I have about the writing, it’s that it seems that Feinberg is trying to do too much at once sometimes. This a book that seems to be many books in one. It’s a travelogue, a devotional, a history book, a Bible commentary, a nutrition guide, and a cookbook all in one. It’s all fascinating and all well done, but at times it seems that the topics and styles blend together. 

Still, that’s only one gripe in what otherwise is a fascinating read. When we read the Bible, when we get to the parts about food, we tend to visualize food as we know them (a loaf of Wonder Bread in a bag, a box of Fig Newtons, a plate of fish and chips, and so on going up and down the supermarket aisle). What I love about this book is that it helps you understand the culture and historical significance of the food, which helps open your eyes to more fully understand when the Bible uses food as symbols or metaphors. 

You’re My Little Sweet Pea is a cute little book that’s perfect for a baby shower gift or for parents of a newborn.

It’s a hardcover board book that measures about 8 inches by 8 inches. Each page features an adorable illustration of an animal mother or father and her baby, including deer, cats, sheep, giraffes, bears, foxes, tigers, bunnies, and mice. Each is in a familiar anthropomorphic setting; for example, a bunny mother is singing and watching her baby put away toys on a playroom; a bear father is holding his cub in his lap while sitting in his easy chair.

The illustrations are soft and cute with bright watercolor painting. As with all great children’s books, there are plenty of background details to keep children engaged.

The words are reminiscent of books like On the Day You Were Born by Nancy Tillman or Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney, in that they’re like a gentle love letter to a parent’s baby (“Your giggle always melts my heart / You changed my world from the start”). Personally, I find the words a little too babyish for my three year old, but I could totally see a parent of a newborn or a toddler who’s just learning how to talk reading it to their child. As such, it makes a perfect present for parents of a new baby.

Contrary to its name, the Infographic Bible isn’t a Bible. And for me, that’s a point in its favor. I’ve admittedly gotten a little weary of the dozens and dozens of Bibles that Zondervan has marketed that call themselves “The _____ Bible”, which end up just being a standard NIV or NKJV Bible interspersed with a few articles or notes.

How would I characterize The Infographics Bible? Well, you know how when you’re reading a great Study Bible or other Bible reference book, and a certain figure or table catches your eye, and you end up fixated on it for long stretches of time? Well, imagine a book of nothing but those figures and tables blown up to large, full-color 8.5 x 11 inch pages and that’s what this book is.

The word “Infographics” has been misused and misunderstood by a lot of people in recent years. A lot of graphic designers will just take words, organize them in pretty ways, and call them “infographics”. But true infographics are more than just clever design. The best infographics do something called “data visualization”–taking complex and perhaps esoteric information and concepts, and using great visual design to help you more fully comprehend and interpret that information. Put another way, you’re using both sides of your brain to get a fuller understanding of concepts.

While a handful of the figures in this book do fall into that trap of being visually clever but not particularly enlightening, I’m happy to say that there are a great number infographics that really do add unique and valuable context to your understanding of Biblical text. Some of my favorites:

• Several pages are dedicated to listing out Old Testament prophesies, and showing visually how they were fulfilled in the New Testament. The results are visually stunning, but also drive home how closely intertwined the two Testaments are.
• There’s are cool “blueprints” that visualize Noah’s Ark, the Tablernacle, and the Temple.
• There are a few pages that help break down Jesus’ teachings; what were the top subjects he taught on? Who was his audience? Where did he preach?
• There are some thought-provoking historical infographics. One page helps visualize the enormity of Solomon’s wealth. Another visualizes data about the fishing economy of Galilee.
• I particularly like certain pages where they take a lot of historical information and distill it into an at-a-glance page. For example, they list out all the kings of Israel and Judah and identify what they did in their reign and whether they were good or bad. They take the events of Paul’s life and lay them out in a timeline that’s much clearer than the traditional “Paul’s Journeys” map you see in most Bibles. They list out all the letters in the New Testament and list, at a glance, the sender, the recipient, where it was sent from, where it was sent to, and the subject. The one sort of obvious missing opportunity was that I didn’t see any visualization of the minor prophets, although there are timelines dedicated to the Exile and the return from Exile where they reference the relevant prophets.

Something else I love about this book is that it just shows the visualization, but doesn’t provide commentary on how you’re “supposed” to interpret it. They let the data speak for itself, and it’s up to you, preferably with the guidance of the Spirit, to figure out what it means and its significance.

Overall, it’s a book that’s as beautiful to look at as it is enlightening to read. You probably won’t be reading it page-by-page, but if you’re preparing a Bible Study, you’ll definitely want to keep this book handy to give you just a little more context behind certain topics. The large, hardcover cloth book is a great conversation piece that goes as well on your coffee table as it does in your reference library.