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.