bible story Archives | Little Book, Big Story

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A Very Noisy Christmas, by Tim Thornborough | Little Book, Big Story

A Very Noisy Christmas | Tim Thornborough

A funny thing happened when we started packing: our books, that fill shelves throughout our house and are already quite a presence, seemed to multiply. One shelf’s worth filled three boxes, yet there were dozens of shelves to go. We understood, early on, that the bulk of our packable possessions are books.

It also became clear, while we were moving about from place to place, that the bulk of our portable possessions are also books. Lydia packed her entire collection of Redwall books, because she feels at home wherever they are. Josie needed her Sandra Boynton library; I filled a plastic tote with books I intended to read (Enjoying God), books I hoped to read (A Girl of the Limberlost), and books I might feel the sudden urge to re-read (The Lord of the Rings). And none of that includes our school books, of which there are also many.

But here is where this works out well: I spent the summer posting re-runs here and the fall posting nothing. But all summer and fall, our family was buying and borrowing and reading and falling in love with new books. Which means I have an abundance of wonderful books to share with you. I am, frankly, finding it very hard to wait to share some of them.

But I will start with this one, because it is so much fun to read and so seasonally appropriate:

When you have a toddler or a preschooler (or, like me, one of each for the past eight years or so), the volume in your home fluctuates quite a bit. There’s the high setting: squealing, giggling, ricocheting off furniture, weeping, and so on. And there’s the low setting: sleeping, snuggling, drawing on the wall with mom’s best lipstick.

A Very Noisy Christmas turns that knob up and down as you read the Christmas story, with prompts that encourage kids to whisper and bellow along with a telling on Jesus’ birth. It begins in a whisper, with the shepherds sleeping, and turns to a yell when the angels burst on the scene. Tim Thornborough’s text is fun to read aloud, and Jennifer Davison’s illustrations are full of energy, movement, and color (a great combo for energetic, ever-active, and certainly colorful kids).

This book would be great in a Sunday School class, or with a group of kids. Or with a toddler on one knee and a preschooler on the other. Or, really, just any time with any little kid.

A Very Noisy Christmas
Tim Thornborough; Jennifer Davison (2018)

Disclosure: I did receive a copy of this for review, but I was not obligated to review this book or compensated for my review in any way. I share this book with you because I love it, not because I was paid to do so.

Little One, We Knew You'd Come, by Sally Lloyd-Jones (review) | Little Book, Big Story

December 22, 2017 / 2 Comments

Little One, We Knew You’d Come | Sally Lloyd-Jones

We bought this book years ago, when Lydia was in the tornado stage—flinging books off the shelves at random, emptying baskets of toys on the floor—and The Jesus Storybook Bible was not an old friend, broken in by years, but a new acquaintance we couldn’t get enough of. I ordered Little One, We Knew You’d Come because it, too, was by Sally Lloyd-Jones.

But (I’m embarrassed to admit this) I didn’t immediately love it.

The illustrations are of a style that, though beautiful, didn’t appeal to me at first. And the text, though beautifully written, never mentioned Jesus’ name. I remember thinking, Wait. This could be about any longed-for baby. It doesn’t have to be about the coming of Christ. I had that uncomfortable sense that I was missing something.

Years passed and three more of our babies reached the book-flinging stage (Josie is firmly entrenched in it now). We have read this book to every child every year, and it has borne those repeated readings with grace. The gentle and quiet illustrations have grown on me; Lloyd-Jones’ poetic words have, too. And I have grown to love the way it doesn’t mention Jesus’ name, because while so many Christmas books illustrate his coming through the eyes of creation awaiting a Savior or Israel waiting on a king, this one lets us see his coming through the eyes of Mary and Joseph, who await not just God’s Son, but their son. He is their Redeemer, and he is the baby they have waited nine months to meet.

I get it now. And it is lovely.

Also

Merry Christmas! I am so thankful for you all and pray that this season is filled with that deep-seated wonder—the one that comes not from the “childhood magic” of Santa, but from the true magic of a God who took on humble, helpless infancy for our sake. He is the One who took the shadow of the Law and gave it substance, the One who ripped the curtain so that God might, when all is ready, dwell among us. May the joy of this carry you through many long evenings in the kitchen, many unanticipated needs, and many overtired toddler meltdowns. May he sustain you and give you strength, and may he give you peace.

Little One, We Knew You’d Come
Sally Lloyd-Jones; Jackie Morris (2006)

Psalm 23, by Barry Moser | Little Book, Big Story

December 30, 2016 / 2 Comments

Psalm 23 | Barry Moser

Of all the psalms, this one feels most familiar. This is the one I recite to myself when I can’t fall asleep, the one I’ve taught my daughters to recite to themselves when they can’t fall asleep, the one whose images are comforting in an unfluffy way: David talks about The Valley of Death, after all, so this psalm is assurance for very real suffering.

There are a number of good picture book versions of this psalm out there, but none that have made it onto this blog yet. I don’t know exactly why that is, but until now, I returned every one to the library without feeling the need to review it. Barry Moser’s version is different.

By following a shepherd boy through his day’s work, Moser takes a fairly standard approach to illustrating this psalm, but instead of featuring a Sunday-school David in short bathrobe and sandals, Moser models his shepherd on a young Caribbean boy. Moser’s shepherd wears modern day clothes, squints into the sun, and tends his sheep gently as the text of the psalm follows him from scene to scene.

The Lord is my shepherd
I shall not want.

Putting these familiar words into a fresh setting made me listen closely as I read them to my daughters. It reminded me that the Lord is my shepherd, yes, but he is also their Shepherd. And your Shepherd. And the shepherd of the shepherds tending flocks near the equator. His gentle hand guides and comforts me in trial, but his reach extends even to islands in the Pacific, where the trees are laden not with prickly evergreen boughs but with slender palm leaves. His reach extends further even than that.

The comfort of Psalm 23 runs deeper, then, when I realize that, though the flock of sheep he tends is vast, our Shepherd cares for us all. He knows not only my name, but yours too, and that of the boy Moser modeled his shepherd on.

That is, I think, why Moser’s Psalm 23 connected with me more deeply than any of the other versions I’ve read. His illustrations are light-filled and beautiful, and they present Psalm 23 as a psalm for all of us, no matter where we live or what we look like. He illuminates the goodness of our Shepherd through the picture of one faithful young boy.

Speaking of Psalm 23 . . .

Did you hear that Sally Lloyd-Jones and Jago are working on a version as well? A happy dance here is perfectly appropriate.

Psalm 23
Barry Moser (2008)

Golly's Folly, by Eleazar & Rebekah Ruiz | Little Book, Big Story

November 11, 2016 / 0 Comments

Golly’s Folly | Eleazar and Rebekah Ruiz

Some of the best parts of Scripture feature unsavory elements. Genocide, for example. Prostitution. Murder. And because those passages tend toward the unsavory, they don’t often get shared with children.

Maybe that’s as it should be. Maybe those books are better after the wait.

But sometimes authors take the plunge and pull surprisingly beautiful themes out of Scripture’s darker corners. Authors Eleazar and Rebekah Ruiz did just that when they adapted the story of Ecclesiastes into a parable called Golly’s Folly.

Golly is a prince who grows impatient for his turn to be king. But when his father hands his crown over to Golly, Golly uses his new authority to surround himself with wealth, possession, and knowledge—all in an effort to make himself happy. That goes about as well as you might expect. Eventually, Golly learns that what makes him truly happy was his before he ever wore a crown.

I happened upon a trailer for this book months ago, and while I was promptly smitten with the illustrations and the design, I was most taken with the message of the book. From a young age, our children are surrounded with countless variations on the theme that we can find our happiness in possessions and experiences and achievements, and they watch us wrestle with those same temptations (with varying degrees of success). So I’m thankful for a book that shows our children, clearly and concisely, where our true happiness lies.

And while I’m excited to tell you about Golly’s Folly myself, this week’s review doesn’t end there: on Tuesday, you’ll get to hear directly from authors Eleazar and Rebekah Ruiz, who were kind enough to let me interview them for this blog! I think you’re going to love what they have to say about children’s books, beauty, and their new publishing company, Patrol Books. (We’ll also be giving away a copy of the book!)

But if you can’t wait until then and want to know more about the book right now—why they wrote it, how it was made—here are a few behind-the-scenes videos about the making of Golly’s Folly to tide you over:

Behind the Story | Behind the Art | Behind the Letters

Golly’s Folly
Eleazar and Rebekah Ruiz, Rommel Ruiz (2016)

The One O'Clock Miracle, by Alison Mitchell | Little Book, Big Story

September 30, 2016 / 2 Comments

The One O’Clock Miracle | Alison Mitchell

At the start of the year, I knew nothing of the series “Tales that Tell the Truth.” I had never seen Catalina Echeverri’s artwork, nor heard of Alison Mitchell or Carl Laferton.

But that changed when I read The Garden, the Curtain and the Cross. Not long after reading that book, I found The Storm that Stopped, and felt a sudden conviction that our family must own these books. All of them. Immediately. These books are beautifully told, truthful, well made, and worth reading dozens of times. We needed them.

The One O’Clock Miracle was the next to join our collection:

The One O’Clock Miracle tells of the young boy Jesus healed, through the perspective of his father, who walked miles and miles to meet Jesus, only to hear the words, “Go. Your Son will live.”

But Alison Mitchell isn’t content to simply retell the biblical story. Instead, she uses the story as a lens through with readers can view Jesus: the sub-title, “A True Story About Trusting the Words of Jesus“ is the perfect summary of her purpose here. The story is fun to read, but by the end the end of the book, it shows us something new about trusting Jesus, something we hadn’t seen before.

Catalina Echeverri’s illustrations are, again, full of energy and charm. And I’m pleased to report that, though our collection is growing, there are still more “Tales That Tell the Truth” out there for our family to collect.

And collect them we will.

The One O’Clock Miracle
Alison Mitchell, Catalina Echeverri (2015)

The Storm That Stopped, by Alison Mitchell | Little Book, Big Story

July 22, 2016 / 0 Comments

The Storm That Stopped | Alison Mitchell

Dear reader, this book brings me such joy. I can’t pinpoint the moment when I fell for it—was it the illustration of the disciples pulling their boat out into the sea?

Their expressions during the storm?

Or was it only at the end, when Mitchell brought the story to its beautiful conclusion, that I knew I’d fallen whole-heartedly in love with The Storm That Stopped?

I can’t say. But the book became one of my favorites to read aloud almost immediately.

What Scripture presents as a fairly simple narrative, Alison Mitchell shares with the energy of a good bedtime story. She tells not only what happened but why it was important: When Jesus calmed the storm with just a few words, what did it mean? What did that tell the disciples about who Jesus is? After reading the book, my husband said, “It’s a little like a sermon,” meaning that Mitchell doesn’t stop at telling the story, but goes one step further and tells us what the story is about.

Catalina Echeverri’s illustrations add yet another layer to the story and, if I’m perfectly honest, are what really got to me. You’ve seen her work already in The Garden, the Curtain and the Cross, but she is at her best when illustrating the disciples: she shows how genuinely frightening it must have been to face the storm, but she does it in a way that is funny and endearing. My daughters and I giggled quite a bit over the disciples’ response to the storm, but a few short pages later, I found myself tearing up again—this time not from laughter but from wonder.

Mitchell and Echeverri make a marvelous team and I am glad, because this isn’t their only book together. I’m already itching to read the others!

The Storm That Stopped
Alison Mitchell, Catalina Echeverri (2016)

The Garden, the Curtain and the Cross, by Carl Laferton | Little Book, Big Story

July 1, 2016 / 7 Comments

The Garden, the Curtain and the Cross | Carl Laferton

There are some trends I can’t get behind, like jeggings and cookie dough dip. But I do see a trend emerging that I can fully endorse: for a while, we’ve had some stellar story bibles that treat Scripture as one big story (The Jesus Storybook Bible; The Big Picture Story Bible), but lately, I’ve noticed more and more picture books that try to capture some aspect of Scripture’s big story. Some tackle the entire arc of Scripture (The Biggest Story); others focus on a few crucial books of the Bible (Miracle Man).

These have, so far, been beautifully illustrated. And so far, they’ve all been awesome.

The Garden, the Curtain and the Cross is another stunning example of a book that distills the big story of Scripture down into a potent dozen or so pages, so kids can read through the main arc of Scripture’s story in one sitting. Carl Laferton uses the curtain that separated the Israelites from the Holy of Holies, the part of the temple where God lived, to illustrate the effect that the Fall had on our relationship with God. Throughout the book, a simple refrain crops up:

Because of your sin, you can’t come in

Aided by Catalina Echeverri’s colorful illustrations, Laferton explains how that separation happened (the garden), what it was like while it lasted (the curtain), and how it ended (the Cross).

On my first read-through, though, I must confess that I thought the story has been simplified a little too much. But when I reached the end and saw what Laferton had been building toward, I realized that, no, that simplicity was just right. And when I read it aloud to my daughters, the story came alive.

Because of your sin, you can’t come in

Like an unresolved chord, that refrain hangs unfinished throughout the story, until the last note—the note of Christ’s suffering on our behalf—joins in:

Because of your sin, you can’t come in,
but I died on the cross to take your sin . . .
So all my friends can now come in!

The story resolves beautifully. Our story resolves beautifully. And we simply cannot hear that good news enough.

The Garden, the Curtain and the Cross
Carl Laferton, Catalina Echeverri (2016)

Tag: bible story (page 1 of 5)

A Very Noisy Christmas | Tim Thornborough

Little One, We Knew You’d Come | Sally Lloyd-Jones

Also

Psalm 23 | Barry Moser

Speaking of Psalm 23 . . .

Golly’s Folly | Eleazar and Rebekah Ruiz

The One O’Clock Miracle | Alison Mitchell

The Storm That Stopped | Alison Mitchell

The Garden, the Curtain and the Cross | Carl Laferton

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Tag: bible story (page 1 of 5)

A Very Noisy Christmas | Tim Thornborough

Little One, We Knew You’d Come | Sally Lloyd-Jones

Also

Psalm 23 | Barry Moser

Speaking of Psalm 23 . . .

Golly’s Folly | Eleazar and Rebekah Ruiz

The One O’Clock Miracle | Alison Mitchell

The Storm That Stopped | Alison Mitchell

The Garden, the Curtain and the Cross | Carl Laferton

subscribe to the newsletter

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Affiliate Links

Books for Review

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