Review of the Look and Tell Bible

The Look and Tell Bible is a board book designed by Make Believe Ideas, Ltd. in the UK and published in the United States by Thomas Nelson. If you’ve never read a book by Make Believe Ideas, you’re in for a treat. This isn’t the first book published by Make Believe and Thomas Nelson; if you look on Amazon you’ll see many more, including a great ABC Alphabet Book and Camilla the Cupcake Fairy. While Thomas Nelson is a Christian publisher, just about anyone will love how adorable and innovative their books are.

The Look and Tell Bible, of course, is a book for Christians. It was released in the UK back in April but is being released in the US this month (July 2016) with a new cover and “Americanized” writing. The book measures about 9″ by 9″. The cover says that it’s designed for children 3+, but it’s really suitable for children from 1-4.

Just looking at the book, I knew that it would become one of my go-to books as my daughter learns to identify objects and eventually learns to read. Each pair of two pages represents a Bible story, such as the story of Joseph and his coat, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, the birth of Jesus, the feeding of the 5000, and so on. As the book is open, the page to the left shows 5-7 adorable color cartoon illustrations of various objects and their names. To the right is about 50-60 words of writing, interspersed with the illustrations.

You read it like a rebus. You read the words and then when you hit a picture, you can ask your child to tell you what it is. It’s a brilliant way to help your child transition from the time where he’s pointing at objects to a time when he can actually sit down and read with you. It works on so many levels–you can use it as a picture book with a young toddler to identify objects, or for an older child you can have her read the actual words with you and have a little fun matching the object to the picture.

The book is solid throughout and the colors are bright and cheery. It’s a really well produced book–the pages are all board book-thick, and the individual illustrations have a glossy, ever so slightly embossed feel about them. The cover itself is beautiful as well, with large embossed pictures of David and Goliath.

This is one that will definitely be used time and time again. Highly recommended.