Name That Hymn Blog

Well, as you can see in my last post I’m officially a new daddy now which means one thing–I’ll probably be reviewing a lot more children’s books. Even if you’re not a parent, if you have nieces, nephews, grandchildren, or friends with young ones, you might want to read these and if there are good books out there, to give them the gift of knowledge and wisdom in addition to the toys and clothes you’re already giving.

One hard truth I’ve realized as I’ve become a father is that just in my lifetime we’ve gone from a society that embraced Christianity, to one that was ambivalent about it, to one that tolerated it, to one that is increasingly openly hostile to it (especially in places like where I live in the New York City area). We’re seeing history repeat itself again as Christians outside our country are tortured an murdered for their beliefs, and Christians inside our country are denigrated, despised, and stripped of their livelihoods and their reputations if they dare to come out of their “closet”.

And so how do you combat this? The old adage is true–the pen is mightier than the sword. Gutenberg revolutionized the world by publishing the Bible–for the first time in 1500 years people could hold the Word of God in their own hands. And so it is with the children of our society today.

And so I’m looking for good books that teach eternal truths, preferably not insulting their intelligence nor beating them over the head with dogma, but letting God’s word speak for itself.

And with that, I’ll turn to today’s book. Thank You, Lord, For Everything from the wife and husband writing and illustration team of PJ Lyons and Tim Warnes.

I have to say, I loved this book in so many ways. It seems that merchandising of characters has become the only way we can shop for children these days. All you can find are Mickey Mouse blankets, Cookie Monster diapers, Snoopy pillows, Bugs Bunny band aids, and so on.

The illustrations in this book by Tim Warnes are the star of the show. The main character of the book isn’t a “star”, he’s just an adorable little bear just going through his daily life of waking up, eating breakfast, playing with friends, and having a picnic. The illustrations are colorful, bright, and as you can see in this example has details that will engage youngsters.

The story by PJ Lyons consists of simple and short rhymes where the little bear realizes that he can give thanks for all the wonderful things in his life.

What I love about this book is that it teaches 1 Thessalonians 5:18 without even having to cite chapter and verse. It shows this cute little bear living it out, understanding the lesson we grown-ups often forget that everything wonderful in our lives is given to us by God and that with a humble heart we should give thanks, not just mouthing the words when saying grace but by experiencing them in our lives.

As a father, something else I really appreciate is an appearance from the little bear’s dad, pouring juice for the little guy at breakfast time and spending time to play with him later in the book. It’s sad that the appearance of a good father role model seems to be so rare these days in portrayals of families in media (more often than not, the dad is either bungling or absent altogether), but I was happy to see it here.

The hardcover book is solid board book with 16 pages and full color throughout. The cover is thicker, padded stock. While the age range says 4-8 years, I think 8 might be a little too old–it’s definitely a book for much younger children from, say, 3-6–from 3-5 you’re probably going to be reading it to him but by age 5-6, he should start being able to read some things for himself.

Sometimes Christian children’s books seem a little like they’re trying too hard to get children’s attention with gimmicks like stickers or attempting to take adult concepts and “dumb them down” for kids. Where I love this book is that it’s simple and tells a wonderful story using natural language and concepts that small kids can understand, with a simple message that will be one of the most powerful for them if they can continue to practice it growing up.

This one is very highly recommended, it’s one of the top children’s books I’ve reviewed to date. and one I’ll definitely be sharing with my little one, hopefully over and over again.

The last time I purchased a Study Bible was my ragged NIV Study Bible from 1985. How the times have changed since the days of digital printing.

At 2880 pages, NIV Zondervan Study Bible is easily the most comprehensive Study Bible on the market today. They’ve made the pages thin, the typeface small, and the typeface of the study notes even smaller but still it weighs in at almost 5 pounds. Here are some of the things I love about it:

1) New typeface. After years of publishing Bibles in standard Times New Roman, the new typeface appears to be in the Garamond family, which I find much more friendly and readable.

2) Full color. Unlike Study Bibles of yore which relegated the color printing to the maps at the end, every page of this Bible uses 4-color printing, meaning you’ll have things like green-colored chapter numbers and headlines, light green background for the Study Notes section on the bottom of each page, full-color illustrations and tables. They don’t use color for the sake of color but only as it augments the reading experience. And yes, the maps that we all took imaginary journeys on during those slower-moving sermons are still there

3) Illustrations. Speaking of illustrations, they too are phenomenal. There are full color photographs of relics and artifacts that really make the Bible text come to life (Isaiah 47 which talks about the fall of Babylon shows an artifact from the British Museum from Assyria depicting the event; next to 1 Thessalonians 4:5 shows the remains a first-century bath that was next door to a brothel, and so on).

4) Each book of the Bible has an extensive introduction that speaks to the books’ authorship, date, audience, historical setting and purpose, literary features, theological significance, and a concise outline of the book. The commentary to introduce each book for the most part seems balanced and fair.

5) The back of the Bible includes a number of articles on various spiritual topics from various authors. Again, for the most part these articles appeared comprehensive and well-researched in discussing not only the topic but also approaches to studying the topic.

6) The book is solidly constructed, not a small engineering feat for such a large volume. It’s not the type of Bible you’ll be lugging around to church every week, but that’s not what it was designed for; for me, it’s a great reference to have for when I need it. And I was pleasantly surprised to see that every copy has an individualized card at the end that lets you enter a code to download the digital version, which does solve the portability challenge.

7) With goes without saying that the maps, concordances, charts, timelines, illustrations, and photographs are excellent, on par with what youd’ find in most standalone volumes.

If there is one gripe I have about this book it’s in the commentary. Where the commentary sticks to historical facts and background I love it. But flipping to a couple of the verses that different Christian denominations typically disagree on, I find that in most cases only one perspective and interpretation is espoused. Given that this is a Bible, a casual reader might conflate the commentary with the Word itself.

While I don’t blame the editors for taking this approach–by definition the entire notion of commentary in a Study Bible is for it to be one person or one group’s interpretation (i.e. opinion) and including every opinion would have doubled the size of the volume–I would have much preferred a much more balanced approach, especially for some of the verses that have to do with doctrines with which different denominations may differ. One example of this is Acts 2:38. The commentary unequivocally states that this verse does not mean that the actual act of baptism saves and implies that it is merely an outward act. It also seemed to imply that the apostles baptizing “in the name of Jesus” was merely shorthand for the more proper Trinitarian formula. Again, while good people can differ on precise interpretation, I would have liked to see a more balanced and measured approach, something I’d seen in earlier versions of the NIV Study Bible but which unfortunately I see less and less of recently.

Still, if you’re a serious student of the Bible, this is a volume I highly recommend having in your library provided that you use it as a reference and starting point for your own studies and not a replacement for them.

On August 4, I became the proud daddy of baby Madeleine. Thank God, while she came about three weeks earlier than expected, mother and baby are doing just fine. I’m still taking in all the emotions and experiences that come with fatherhood, and something tells me there’s a blog post ahead on the subject (that for the first time in a while won’t be a book review). Stay tuned for that 🙂

I’ve been reviewing a lot of grown-up books, but with the arrival of baby girl I’ll be looking for children’s books to review. In many ways, the need for great Christian children’s books is more critical than ever.

We live in a world where it’s harder than ever for new parents to raise their children in Christ. I have to admit, that’s one of the things that terrifies me most as a new parent. The United States I grew up in was still at its core a Christian nation–even though they weren’t teaching the Bible in schools there was basic agreement of civics and morality that was shared between parents, the schools, and the church. And they happened to coincide with the teachings of Christ. Love thy neighbor. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Blessed are the peacemakers.

But somehow in the last 50 years even those things that seem to have been common sense are now somehow controversial. What at one time had been a partnership between parents, schools, and church now is now anything but. Parents distrust schools because they feel certain educators are more interested in pushing a social agenda than teaching their kids. Schools distrust parents because so many of them fail to discipline their kids at home leaving it to the poor teachers to deal with it. The church in far too many cases grows more and more irrelevant because they become too insular and irrelevant to the needs of their congregations at a time when their congregations need them the most. And of course, the child is the one hurt the most in all this.

As a parent, I know I can write off the schools as a place where my little girl is going to learn basic morals or civics. I’m going to keep praying that my church continues to examine itself and becomes the kind of place that my little girl can really experience the love of Christ in. But I realize that the bulk of the responsibility is going to be on me, as it should be, to model for her what Christ’s love is all about and to teach her as much as I can.

It’s because of this that I’m thankful for books like the one I’m reviewing today, the Say and Pray Bible: First Words, Stories, and Prayers by Diane Stortz with illustrations by Sarah Ward.

The book is just the right size for little hands; about 5 x 7 x 1 inches.  The book is beautifully illustrated throughout. It’s perfect for toddlers aged 3-5 who are just learning how to read; on each page there’s a title, a 2-3 sentence “story”, and about 7-10 word bubbles that accompany the colorful illustrations.

To call this book a “Bible” is a bit of a misnomer, but I think the author and publisher probably used the word figuratively. The book does go through 20 child-friendly stories in the Bible (Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, etc.). There are no more than 20 words on a page, so this is less a storybook than it is a book for you to read along with your toddler as he or she points out pictures together identifies and learns individual words like the names of animals or Bible characters. The onus is really on you as the parent to know the stories in advance to describe the illustration or in case your inquisitive little one starts asking questions about it.

The pictures are wonderfully drawn and will be appealing to most children. The animals are cute and scenes are all simple yet beautifully colored. The Bible characters are cute without being inaccurate (the picture of the Good Samaritan shows him of a different skin hue than the others; characters like Abraham and Ruth wear simple clothes and sandals; Joseph’s coat of many colors is really, really colorful; and so on).

Each story also has a Bible verse associated with it and a short one-sentence prayer (the “say and pray”). It’s of course not deep theologically, but does start to introduce your toddler to the concept of reading the Bible and prayer. Of course whether our toddlers continue this depends largely on how much we do it ourselves.

The book is a “board book” so each page is made of thick, durable card stock. The cover is even a little plush. The book is solidly constructed and will almost surely become a favorite of your toddler.

What I love most about the book is that it really is age-appropriate–it steers clear of theology and deep exegesis and controversial topics and sticks with something really simple and basic–simple illustrations that will help you tell stories from the Bible.

This is definitely one I’ll be reading with my little one, and hopefully many times. Highly, highly recommended.

I was excited to see the NIV Dad’s Devotional Bible become available. As a soon-to-be-new-dad, and a first-time dad to boot, I figured I could use all the help I could get.

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that these days you can get a Bible for just about anything. In the old days you’d buy different translations like KJV, NIV, NKJV, RSV, and the whole other alphabet soup of versions. But then Zondervan got clever. They’d take the regular Bible and create versions for niche audiences. There are study Bibles, Bibles for leaders, for moms, for students, for teens, for ministers, for kids, for those suffering from illness, for those recovering from illness, for the military, for weddings, for gardeners, for music lovers, and a ton more.

At first I welcomed this trend; after all, there’s no harm in getting more Bibles out into the world, and these things can make great gifts for people in certain situations. But I have to admit I’ve been a little disappointed at the last few of these “specialty” Bibles I’ve read. I do appreciate Study Bibles where each page is annotated with information and commentary that helps you understand the passages you’re reading better. But in the case of a lot of these specialty Bibles, the content could very well have been published as a separate book. In fact, it probably would have been better published in a separate book.

This Bible is a classic example of this. There are 260 devotional readings scattered throughout the book, but it seems more like two books awkwardly mashed together rather than content that’s really integrated; as you read the Bible occasionally you’ll get interrupted by a page with a devotional; conversely, the devotionals say “skip to page 505, skip to page 515, skip to page 526” so the contents of the Bible almost seem to get in the way.

As for the devotionals themselves, while they’re tangentially related to the Bible passages they’re juxtaposed with, in some cases I think the connection is a little too tangential. In most of the devotionals the personal stories the author recounted of his and his family’s life for some reason didn’t really resonate with me. Just as a random example, in the devotional next to Acts 8:26-35, the author starts out by talking about how he in college agreed to act in the play The Fantasticks. He talks about how he got onto the stage and was excited that “it was showtime”. Then he abruptly cuts to the account of Philip and the Ethopian and talks about how that moment was “showtime” for Philip. Yes, I see the connection, but it seemed just a little bit of a stretch for me. Your mileage may vary of course. I definitely encourage you to use the “Look Inside” feature of Amazon to see if the writing resonates more with you than it did with me.

For a Bible like this, I would rather have seen a collection of authors rather than one author. Reading account after account of this author’s own life got a little repetitive after a while; I would have like to have seen accounts from different fathers with different kinds of kids. I also would have loved to have seen practical advice I could have used in teaching my kids the Bible; next to the account of Noah’s Ark, instead of a piece that talks about, say, creative ways to introduce a child to the story, there’s inexplicably a devotional talking about the 1984 Cubs (again, he made it technically relevant but it still seemed like a stretch). Bottom line, I would have liked it to have been a little more relevant for my daily needs as a new father.

That said, I did love this Bible once I got to the end, at page 1411. There are a couple pages that give brief synopses of each book in the Bible and talk about their relevance to dads. On page 1429-1467 there’s a section on typical Bible-related questions that kids ask, and while I don’t necessarily agree with all the answers they do provide good reference.  The last section is one that provide a topical index relevant to each of the fruit of the Spirit, an interesting addition but one that I’m not sure is the most relevant thing to dad’s Bible there could have been. It seemed a little more like filler.

Bottom line, the Bible itself of course gets a 10 out of 5 stars, but this compilation gets about 3 of 5 for me. Again, this is just me, so I definitely encourage you to take a look for yourself.

It can be difficult to shop for Christian reading materials for children and toddlers. In some cases the material is too watered down–being so subtle in its message that it’s hard to tell if it’s from a Christian or a secular worldview. In other cases the material can be too deep–there may be a time to expose children to esoteric theological material, but perhaps not as a baby or toddler.

Out of all the children’s books on the market, the one that jumped out at me as I tried to “judge a book by its cover” was Words to Dream On: Bedtime Bible Stories and Prayers by Diane Storz (illustrated by Diane Le Feyer). The book itself is a beautiful, full-color book from cover to cover, with hardcover binding. The first page has an area where you can write your name, the child’s name, and the date if you give the book as a gift to a child, grandchild, nephew or niece, or friend.

The book is divided into 26 stories from the Old Testament and 26 from the New Testament. The stories are arranged by the order they’re presented in the Bible, started with the Creation and ending with an entry called “Forever with Jesus” based on Revelations. In the middle, of course, you’ll find stories you expect, such as Daniel in the Lion’s Den, Noah’s Ark, and many stories of Jesus from the Gospels.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this book is that the author didn’t see a need to embellish the stories. As I read through the stories, while the stories are of course rewritten in simple language for children, I don’t see anything that contradicts the original text of Scripture. To the contrary, the stories are very true to the stories of the Bible. For example, take this passage from the Parable of the Prodigal Son:

Here’s how the passage reads in this book:

“Here’s your food, piggies,” he said as he poured messy pig food into feeding troughs. He felt so hungry, though, that the messy pig food began to look good to him, and he thought about eating it himself.” Then he had an idea. “I’m a hired worker with nothing to eat,” he said, “But my father gives plenty of food to his hired workers!”

And here’s the source content:

So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would have gladly filled his stomach with the pods that the swine were eating, and no one was giving anything to him. But when he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger!’

The illustration are also remarkably true to Scripture as well, as far as I can tell. In the Christmas story, you don’t see wintry scenes of snowfall. Illustrations of most characters throughout the book are of people with dark hair, darker skin, and beards of the kind you’d find in the Middle East, not to mention fairly accurate (for a kid’s book) depictions of the kinds of clothes, marketplaces, pottery, and animals. In the story of Jonah, you don’t see a picture of a smiling whale but rather an illustration of a tail of a “great fish”. The one exception, not all that surprisingly, are illustrations of Jesus, where He’s still depicted with white skin and brown hair; granted no one knows what He really looked like on Earth, so the illustrator probably figured it was better to stick with the typical images.

Something else I loved was that each story concludes with a short “Sleepy-Time Prayer” and “Bedtime Blessing”. If I had one wish it’s that the prayers were just a little longer than the 10-15 words and the blessings were a little longer than the 5-7 words. But then again, it might be for the best if you as a parent can come up with your own prayer to share with your little one.

Overall, I was pretty impressed with this book. The book itself is solid–the hard covers are thick and durable, and the pages inside are thick and in beautiful full color which will hold the attention of your little one. It is a great way to introduce your little one (and re-introduce yourself) to the stories of the Bible.