Tag: gail schoonmaker (page 1 of 1)

ESV Big Picture Bible

For years, we have been adoring fans of David Helm’s Big Picture Story BibleWe’ve read it so many times that the spine has begun to crumble, and it has a distinguished spot on our short list of favorite story bibles. So when I learned that Crossway had released a full-text ESV Bible with illustrations from The Big Picture Story Bible, I was all over it.

ESV Big Picture Bible | Little Book, Big Story

This Bible is beautiful and basic: beyond the illustrations, there are no frills, and I kind of like that. The illustrations are small and interspersed throughout the text (with an occasional full-page spread), so they embellish the text in a way that makes it easier for children to navigate.

ESV Big Picture Bible | Little Book, Big Story

We bought this Bible as a Christmas gift for Sarah, our six-year-old who knows where to find the Lord’s Prayer and Psalm 23 in her dad’s old Bible, and I’m excited to see how she puts her very own Bible to use. There’s a part of me that hopes that the binding on this Bible is nice and sturdy. But there’s a bigger part that hopes that, a few years from now,  it looks as battered and beloved as our copy of The Big Picture Story Bible.

ESV Big Picture Bible | Little Book, Big Story

ESV Big Picture Bible
Crossway (2015)

The Big Picture Story Bible

After six consecutive nights spent awake and in the company of a congested baby, you start to forget important things like why you normally leave your glasses on the bookshelf near the door and not on the floor for the baby to find, or that you were going to mention to your husband the fact that a bolt is missing from the rear wheel of the car, or, incredibly, how to pronounce your own first name (please tell me that has happened to you, too).

Or you panic for a moment, while on a walk with the children, because you don’t see the baby—where is she?—before realizing that she is in the stroller that you are pushing right in front of you as you walk, kicking her feet happily as her sisters drop fallen leaves in her lap.

The Big Picture Story Bible | Little Book, Big Story

You also forget things like why you wanted to write a blog post about David Helm’s The Big Picture Story Bible. The post is there, at the top of your list of drafts, but you find yourself sitting on the couch at 5:57 a.m., drinking a rapidly cooling cup of Earl Grey tea and thinking about that missing bolt.

The Big Picture Story Bible | Little Book, Big Story

However, there is a light pinging way back in the back of my mind, reminding me that the ladies at Aslan’s Library wrote a beautiful review of not only The Big Picture Story Bible, but also of the accompanying audio CDs. Not only that, but they linked to this excellent presentation by David Helm on how to teach your children the whole story of the Bible (I watched that and it was so good, great for watching while folding laundry, knitting, or staring off into space). So today, I will refer you to Aslan’s Library and go back to nursing my now lukewarm tea and savoring the final chapters of Lila, by Marilynne Robinson.

Notice the heavily worn binding of our book—evidence, surely of a book worth reading again and again and again:

The Big Picture Story Bible | Little Book, Big Story

The Big Picture Story Bible
David R. Helm, Gail Schoonmaker (2004)