Tag: jago (page 1 of 2)

February 25, 2020 / 0 Comments

Observing Lent with The Jesus Storybook Bible

What Advent is to Jesus’ birth, Lent is to his death and resurrection. During the 40 days of Lent, we prepare to celebrate Easter by remembering our need for Jesus. We reflect on our mortality, remembering that we are dust, and we reflect on our need for a Savior willing to die in our place. Lent is, perhaps, not so cozy as Advent, but it is beautiful. And it starts tomorrow.

Over the years, I have found many Advent devotionals and a few excellent two-weeks-til-Easter devotionals. But I have found very few books willing to walk our family through the entire season of Lent. I cannot, in fact, think of any.

Observing Lent with Kids and The Jesus Storybook Bible, by Sally Lloyd-Jones | Little Book, Big Story

But Sally Lloyd-Jones has a whole-family guide to observing Lent with kids—and the Jesus Storybook Bible. That’s what we’ll be doing this year, and I wanted to share it today so that you, if you’re into this sort of thing, can join us!

The guide features forty days of readings from the Jesus Storybook Bible, as well as a printable paper chain and coloring pages. This will definitely please the younger set of readers in our house, but I know the older girls will enjoy it as well.

Jesus Storybook Bible, Reading Plan for Lent | Little Book, Big Story — *Photo: Sally Lloyd-Jones*

You can download the guide from Sally Lloyd-Jones’s website for free by subscribing to her mailing letter.

The Jesus Storybook Bible
Sally Lloyd-Jones; Jago (2007)

March 15, 2019 / 0 Comments

Loved

Our girls say the Lord’s Prayer every Sunday in church and every morning over breakfast. Those who don’t yet know the words by heart know the rhythm of it and let their voices rise and fall in time with ours, and those who do almost chant them, the words bubbling up without effort from that place where such things are stored.

They know the Lord’s Prayer. But do they hear what they’re saying?

I wonder this sometimes even as I recite with our congregation. What is it we’re saying, I wonder. Do we understand? There is a discipline to memorizing Scripture, and there is a different discipline to meditating on it and absorbing its meaning. I find sometimes that reading a well-worn passage in a new translation can help me hear what I know by rhythm if not by heart.

Loved is a fresh look at the Lord’s Prayer. Like it’s predecessor Found, Loved graduates some of the text from The Jesus Storybook Bible to its very own picture book. In this case, the text is Lloyd-Jones’ adaptation of the Lord’s Prayer and it is beautiful—just the thing for helping my littlest readers understand better what that lengthy morning recitation is about. Jago illustrates it with a group of children climbing and playing and fighting and forgiving out in nature, where everything sings with the glory of God.

Loved helps train our eyes to see and our ears to hear the beauty of our God and Father. And it helps us listen again to what we say when we pray the Lord’s Prayer:

“Hello Daddy!
We want to know you.
And be close to you.
Please show us how.”

Loved: The Lord’s Prayer
Sally Lloyd-Jones; Jago (2018)

September 8, 2017 / 2 Comments

10 Books About God for Toddlers

This summer, we planted flowers—rows and rows of them. In the bed typically dedicated to trailing squash, we sprinkled seeds that grew into cosmos, zinnias, poppies (four kinds), larkspur, dainty dwarf zinnias, snapdragons. Walking barefoot among those rows, watching the flowers wake, became one of our favorite morning routines.

But inside our home, another kind of flower unfurled as Josie took her first steps, said her first words, and learned how to make us laugh. She shed her babyhood, in which she watched the world happen around her, and stepped into the thick of things, poking at and exploring the world and expecting it to respond.

I had watched this transition three times before, but, like watching flowers shed those green things that encapsulate crumpled petals, it is amazing every time—I think because, with each child, I see more clearly how little I did to bring about that unfolding personality and how much of it was already there, sown into each daughter before I had ever seen her face.

So, in honor of Josie’s summer of unfurling, I made a list for you of my favorite books for toddlers. We love Sandra Boynton and BabyLit books, of course, but this list is for the little ones demanding answers from the world: If I poke the cat, what does he do? If I make this face, will Mama laugh? Let’s give them big answers in small books and see what happens:

Let the Whole Earth Sing Praise, by Tomie dePaola

Let the Whole Earth Sing Praise | Little Book, Big Story

This exuberant book considers every aspect of creation and urges it all to praise God. Beautiful, simple, and vibrantly illustrated. (Read the full review.)

Found, by Sally Lloyd-Jones

Sally Lloyd-Jones’ newest book leads readers through Psalm 23, drawing out the tenderness and warmth of our Good Shepherd as she paraphrases the familiar psalm into a poem that moves readers big and small. Jago’s illustrations here are stunning. (Read the full review.)

Read-Aloud Bible Stories, by Ella K. Lindvall

Each volume of these Bible stories is full of familiar stories, written in language that looks simple but does justice to the biggest truths of our faith. (Read the full review.)

Love is Patient, Love is Kind, by Naoko Stoop

Naoko Stoop’s sweet board book departs from the usual Noah’s Ark/Joseph’s Coat/Moses’ Moment at the Red Sea picture books and gently unwraps 1 Corinthians 13 for readers. (Read the full review.)

Hug-a-Bible, by Sally Lloyd-Jones

Fuzzy on the outside, rich and vibrant on the inside. Lloyd-Jones introduces small readers to the idea that the Bible is not just a collection of epic stories, but an invitation from God to know him, by condensing the truths of a handful of Bible stories into short, beautiful poems.

Look and Be Grateful, by Tomie dePaola

Tomie dePaola’s book of gratitude is one that pokes at parents as we read it to our kids. The text and illustrations are simple but weighty, and they urge us to look around and savor the God who made all things big and small. (Read the full review.)

Prayer for a Child, by Rachel Field

Prayer for a Child is a sweet but not too sweet look at prayer from a child’s perspective. My copy doesn’t show it, but this one won the Caldecott in 1945—at a time when the children reading it were living through a world war. (Read the full review.)

Lift the Flap Bible, by Sally Lloyd-Jones

What toddler doesn’t love lifting flaps? Sally Lloyd-Jones again distills favorite Bible stories down to their gospel essence, while Tracey Moroney’s bright illustrations give little hands plenty to do while they listen. (Read the full review.)

The Biggest Story ABCs, by Kevin DeYoung

Using the alphabet as a guide, Kevin DeYoung lays out the big story of Scripture from beginning to end in a way that points back to Jesus over and over. (Read the full review.)

Jesus Storybook Bible, by Sally Lloyd-Jones

The Jesus Storybook Bible | Little Book, Big Story

No booklist on this blog would be complete without The Jesus Storybook Bible. The truths in here are huge, but the format is small: perfect for introducing toddlers to Jesus through the beautiful stories of Scripture. This book is a standard second birthday gift in our home. (Read the full review.)

March 10, 2017 / 3 Comments

Found

This review might seem a little redundant. I did just write about another Sally Lloyd-Jones book, after all, and I reviewed a book about Psalm 23 not long ago. I even went on about books on Psalm 23 in that post, saying that they were nice and all, but that not many were worth sharing.

But the next month Sally Lloyd-Jones and Jago released a book on Psalm 23, and of course it’s worth sharing.

Found is a bigger-than-usual board book that pairs the text from The Jesus Storybook Bible‘s Psalm 23 with Jago’s illustrations of a shepherd and his sheep. Of course, that’s the approach that I ultimately shrugged my shoulders at in my January post, but Jago’s interpretation is anything but bland. His shepherd is tender with his sheep in a way that seems just right for a book aimed at the littlest readers.

An aside: I love Jago’s illustrations in The Jesus Storybook Bible. But his newer work is amazing—take a look at his Etsy shop and you’ll see what I mean. This book, like Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing, is done in that newer style, and I love it.

So, once again, Sally Lloyd-Jones and Jago, the super group we know and love, have illuminated a well-worn passage of Scripture in both word and image. I tucked this beauty away and will give it, I think, to Phoebe for Easter, because it’s just perfect for giving to little people for Easter. What will you do with your copy? (Because you’re buying this right now, aren’t you?)

Found
Sally Lloyd-Jones, Jago (2017)

November 13, 2015 / 2 Comments

7 Favorite Resources for Family Devotions

Family devotions, we have learned, are fluid. We start a book and stick with it until a baby joins us at the table in a high chair or somebody’s bedtime shifts or a child (who shall not be named) rebels against dinner in all its forms and we leave the table fatigued, having forgotten to pick that book up off the shelf, open it, and read aloud.

Our kids change constantly, and we seem to be always two steps behind them. This makes any kind of routine hard to maintain.

Part of me mourns that fact, and the fact that we’ve yet to finish a devotional together, but another part is grateful for what time we have spent with each of these books. That is the part of me that holds out hope that we’ll get back to them one day—maybe when the high chair has been retired for good, and we’re all eating with forks like civilized folks.

Because we have found a few devotionals worth returning to, plus one that has been an anchor in our family worship, I thought I’d share a few of our favorite resources for family devotions with you. Perhaps you are all eating with forks like civilized folks and you can enjoy reading these books with your family—or perhaps you’re a few steps ahead of us and have realized that that may never happen, and it’s time to buckle down and do family devotions anyway. Whatever your circumstance, here is a list of gems for you:

Long Story Short, by Marty Machowski

This book takes families all the way through the Old Testament—through the famous bits and the weird bits, too. It’s arranged by weeks, with each week divided into days, and each day complete with a reading from the book, a reading from the Bible, and a short list of thought-provoking questions.

We tackled this when our two oldest girls were four and under and were pleasantly surprised at how much our four year old gleaned from the readings (the two year old was more interested in finger-painting with her soup). I look forward to coming back to this one and to exploring Machowski’s book on the New Testament, Old Story New. (Read the full review.)

Training Hearts, Teaching Minds, by Starr Meade

Training Hearts, Teaching Minds | Starr Meade

Our church is collectively working our way through the Westminster Shorter Catechism with this book. Starr Meade orients each week around a catechism question and includes a series of Scripture readings and small devotions to correspond with each day of the week. This one, too, was a winner—but somehow, we only lasted six months before it returned to the shelf and stayed there.

Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing, by Sally Lloyd-Jones

Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing | Little Book, Big Story

I read this book to the girls over breakfast for quite some time. It’s beautiful—the illustrations by Jago are deeper and richer than those in The Jesus Storybook Bible and more mature somehow. And Sally-Lloyd Jones’s meditations on various things truly do make the heart sing. (Read the full review.)

The Family Journal, by Songs for Saplings

Songs for Saplings Family Journal | Little Book, Big Story

We haven’t used The Family Journal as devotional material exactly, but as a landing place for the discussions that arise as we read together as a family. It is fun to revisit the questions and answers our daughters have learned by heart from the Songs for Saplings albums and to make notes on the spontaneous theological questions the girls throw my way. We have stuck with this one—perhaps because we don’t need to read it every day. (Read the full review.)

The Bible

Every so often, we dip into Scripture itself. I have also been reading one-on-one with our oldest daughter, so she’s getting portions of Scripture straight from the source and that has been a rich time together for us (though pregnancy naps are edging that habit out already . . . ). (Read the full post.)

The Advent Jesse Tree, by Dean Lambert Smith

The Advent Jesse Tree: A Family Devotional for Advent | Little Book, Big Story

The Advent Jesse Tree has seen us through Advent after Advent, so we know that we can stick with a series of readings for at least one month! This is a clean, basic, theologically solid look at who Jesus is, what the Bible said about him before he came, and why his coming matters so much to us. We have loved this one year after year, returning to it even after a fancier book with better illustrations briefly lured us away. (Read the full review, or learn how to make your own Jesse tree.)

The Jesus Storybook Bible, by Sally Lloyd-Jones

This book has anchored our devotional time since our eldest was eighteen months old. Knowing that our older girls are learning the New City Catechism as part of their schooling has helped direct our family devotion time toward something that will help build a solid foundation for our younger girls. And so The Jesus Storybook Bible comes back again and again as a part of our evening ritual.

It has traveled with us halfway across the country and back and is held together mostly by box tape—not glamorous, perhaps, but a sure sign of a book that has seen service in the hands of small readers. And that is what we want: we want them to know that this is their story. Perhaps as the whole family levels up together, we’ll tackle other, deeper devotional books, but for now, this is our tried-and-true book for family devotions. (Read the full review.)