“Why?” is a question I hear a lot these days. Sometimes, yes, my girls use it as a stalling tactic. But often my daughters genuinely want to know: why did the caterpillar, lovingly housed in an old sour-cream container and doted on oh-so-much, have to die? Why is the sermon so long? Why did that best friend have to move? Why are there swimming lessons?
I answer a lot of these questions on the fly, with my fingers crossed. In my best moments and for the biggest questions, I send out a desperate plea for wisdom (Why, God, are we having this conversation right now? Oh help!). Or I reach for a book, of which we have many, and for precisely this reason. As a classic overexplainer, I am so grateful for picture books like Read It, See It, Say It, Sing It, that answer some of these big questions simply and cleanly (and, in this case, rhymingly).
Read It, See It, Say It, Sing It looks at the question “Why do we read the Bible?” and helps readers understand that the Bible is not just any book: it is one we take to heart and are transformed by. Hunter Beless’s sweet text invites readers to love God’s word and worship him as we hear it read, read it for ourselves, memorize or discuss it with others, and sing his word with others. Better still, Beless weaves passages of Scripture as well as short references into the book, so we’re encouraged to look to God’s word even as we close her book.
I may not have the answers to all the “Why” questions I’m asked, but I’m grateful for such a solid (and sweetly illustrated) answer to this one.
Disclosure: I did receive a copy of this book for review, but I was not obligated to review it 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.
We stand on the brink of a new Parenting Era—the one strangers were always warning me about in the grocery store, back when strangers made small talk while shopping:
Teenagers.
But I’m not scared. These girls are thoughtful, conversational, and occasionally profound. Emotional, sometimes, yes. Every now and then: very loud. But several times this summer I’ve found myself in conversation with one of our two older girls—talking about a book, or a show, or a global pandemic—and they’ll offer some insight I’d missed, something rich and nuanced that gives me great hope for the women they’ll become.
We still have two daughters in the illustrated story Bible stage, and that’s relief—I kind of don’t ever want to stop reading story bibles. I suppose I’ll just have to read story bibles alone when they all outgrow them. But now we have two that are reading the real thing, so what I want to share today is the Bible I found for them after lots of wonderfully nerdy research.
I have, in the past, reviewed a few full-text Bibles for kids in the 5-8 range, with illustrations and additional material intended to appeal to younger readers. The ESV Kid’s Bible has less of that and looks a little more grownup—but it still has some content helpful for kids still getting their bearings in Scripture.
A few maps, a couple of timelines, a reading plan, a dictionary—the extra materials in here aren’t cute, and they aren’t trying too hard to sell Scripture. This Bible’s design is clearly meant to help kids learn to engage with Scripture while letting Scripture do the talking. Also, it isn’t going to embarrass anyone who brings it to youth group by looking “too little-kid,” so I guess that’s a win.
Of course, the content itself is nothing new—it is, in fact, very old. And yet it is such a firm foundation for kids at this age to stand on when so many other things in their lives (even excluding the pandemic) is changing. Scripture is the truest of true words; it brings the best of news. The ESV Kid’s Bible may be thoughtfully packaged, but the words on the pages themselves matter more than the packaging, and the One the words point to matters most of all.
May this Bible be just another opportunity for our growing readers to know him more deeply.
From our house sometimes we can smell the ocean. We can’t see it—it’s a few blocks, a bluff, some train tracks, and a smattering of industrial buildings away—but when the wind hits the water just right, that salty, seaweedy smell whisks up the bluff to us. Whoever smells it first turns into the wind, smiling. The rest of us know what that means.
Those moments lift the roof off our little world and remind us that right over there, behind those houses, is an ocean. While the girls ride shrieking down the street on their bikes, and I wrestle with a stubborn weed and wish I had a sunhat and maybe a hacksaw, the ocean ebbs and flows out there, just beyond the bluff. I may not like swimming in it, but I have gone out of my way several times during quarantine to go park somewhere and just watch the water. I like to be reminded that it’s there.
So it is with a good story bible: sometimes a good one zooms out to just the right distance, allowing us to enjoy a single Bible story while still whisking in that breath of salty, sea air and reminding us that God always works at something bigger even in the smallest stories.
The Promises of God Storybook Bible is just such a story bible. Jennifer Lyell has taught preschool kids for decades and knows how to tell a Bible story winsomely. But she also links each one to the promises God made his people and traces, throughout the book, the big story of God’s plan for our redemption. She arranges God’s promises like plot points and shows how God answers those promises throughout Scripture (curious, though, that his covenant with David didn’t make the cut. I wonder why?).
We gave this book to Josie, our youngest, but when we read it aloud to all four girls we found that the tone was perfect for our six- and four year olds, but the discussion questions seemed to fit everybody. I was so grateful for this book during those first months of quarantine, when we needed more than ever to be reminded that God is still keeping his promises, whatever it looks like from our vantage point, in this moment. He is still present, even when we can’t see him, and sometimes he sends us small reminders and we lean into the wind, smiling.
I don’t know what you thought when you saw the title of this book, but I thought, “Yes, a new one!” I have long loved Church History ABCs and Reformation ABCs and, frankly, everything I’ve ever read by Stephen J. Nichols or seen by Ned Bustard, so I had a hunch I’d love this book too.
But I also thought, “Oh, nice, Bible History ABCs—as in the history of the Bible.” What it is, though, is much better than that: Nichols uses the alphabet as a framework for telling the entire story of Scripture, from Adam to Zion. It has all the fun wordplay of the first two books, as well as more of Ned Bustard’s illustrations, which are somehow always just what a book needs.
Bible History ABCs includes a bunch of bonus material in the back—the sort of thing I like to get distracted reading while trying to tidy up our books—and tucked away in those last pages is a little spread about the history of the Bible. (Well played, sirs.) So this is not just an engaging look at the story of Scripture, but a thorough look at the story of Scripture. And it’s a book our family will revisit often, I can tell.
Disclosure: I did receive copies of these books 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
This full-length study Bible aimed toward adults may not seem like my usual fare. But I’d like to argue that, actually, it is. This is a children’s book (as well as a book for the mostly-grown, the fully-grown and the elderly), and it is certainly one that emphasizes the Big Story. What makes it seem like an unlikely subject for review, however, is the fact that I don’t really intend for you to read it to your kids.
Here is what I mean:
The older my children get, the more I realize that I can’t teach them anything I don’t know. And I can’t expect them to follow me in anything I don’t live. I can tell them, Yes, we must eat our salad. Here are three excellent reasons why salad is beneficial. But if they hear me say this and then watch me take the tiniest helping of salad and push it around on my own plate without taking a bite, they won’t be fooled.
Likewise, if, in my attempts to encourage them to love Scripture, it becomes clear that everything I know about it comes second-hand from Marty Machowski (excellent though his work is), they won’t be fooled by that either. What I need, in those heated parenting moments, is not a flow chart from a parenting book or an applicable devotional (though those are both helpful), but a deep love for the gospel and its Author. I need to know the Big Story of Scripture and how my kids (and I) fit into it. And I need to be fluent enough in it to remind them of it when called upon, in a heated moment, to do so.
This is brought home to me again and again.
I make no assumptions about you other than that you are, like me, in need of the gospel, and you clearly love good books (or you wouldn’t be here). So I offer for you the best book, in a format that makes that Big Story—the gospel—shine like a diamond just rubbed free of grit.
The Story of Redemption Bible is something between a study Bible and a reader’s Bible: it’s beautifully formatted in a single column so it reads like a thick, pretty book, but woven through it is commentary by Greg Gilbert. Every interjection is meant to point back to that single narrative that arcs through all 66 books of the Bible. See how this connects here? he asks, pointing from some obscure prophecy in Malachi to the moment Jesus fulfilled the prophecy in the Gospels.
Making these connections always enlivens my understanding of Scripture. It helps to put those strange passages of Scripture in context. Understanding where the sacrifices began and why they were necessary makes Jesus’ coming—and his abolition of the sacrificial system—all the more beautiful. I love the Author of this story; I love that we are a part of it.
And the gorgeous design of The Story of Redemption Bible reminds me, when I read, that the Bible is no ordinary book. Peter Voth’s illustrations illuminate the text. Elegant maps and timelines don’t gather idly in the back of the Bible, waiting for an invitation to dance, but stand proudly where they’re most needed: right where they’re mentioned in the text.
The Story of Redemption Bible also offers two reading plans: one that will take you through the whole Bible in a year, from cover to cover, and one that will take you through the Bible in chronological order, interweaving the prophets with the narrative books about their lives, or interspersing Paul’s letters throughout readings from Acts. And a fold-out timeline of God’s redemptive story tucks into the back of the book, ready to be explored.
So this one, dear parents, is for you. Let us love our God more every day and draw freely upon his wisdom and grace when we need it. Let us remember that we’re not yet at the end of his story, but that that ending, when it comes, will be glorious.
