When our girls were little and some of them still didn’t exist, having a baby every two or three years felt just our speed. We weren’t a four-under-four-sized family; we were a pace-yourselves-and-aim-for-one-in-diapers-at-a-time family. Clothes moved pretty easily from one daughter’s dresser to the next, just trickling from room to room, as one daughter outgrew them and passed them on to the next one.
Before you read this next part, let me make this clear: we do not regret this. We loved having a very capable eight-year-old around when our fourth baby was born, and we have loved watching the girls’ friendships blossom at all different ages. There is something truly beautiful about watching these four very different girls love each other through all their various seasons of growth.
But I must say: this year has been a weird one, as we’ve had an eighth grader and kindergartener, plus two in between. One child prepares a speech on Charles Dickens for the school speech meet; another prepares for show-and-tell. One gets her braces off (!!); another is still missing front teeth. We’re living in four very different worlds here, and there are days when that feels a bit disorienting. Wonderfully disorienting, but still.
And so I am always profoundly grateful for the books that meet our whole squad right where we’re at—the ones that, like The Biggest Story Bible Storybook, are deep, thoughtful, and funny enough for the eighth-grader, but also bright, joyful, and clear enough for the kindergartener.
We’ve loved the various iterations of The Biggest Story, from the original version to the ABC board book, but this is by far my favorite. Author Kevin DeYoung and illustrator Don Clark expanded the original book into a full story Bible, filling in stories and adding more fabulous illustrations. But they hold fast to that thread of The Biggest Story and keep sight of Jesus and the work God does through him as they tell the story, and they keep sight of their audience. This is one read-aloud we’ve all enjoyed immensely.
So this summer, as my daughters do everything from hunt snails in the backyard to ride bikes across town to play D&D with their friends, we’ll gather in the long, slow evenings to read this book—a sweet point of connection for all of us, whatever our age.
The Biggest Story Bible Storybook
Kevin DeYoung; Don Clark (2022)