r.c. sproul Archives | Little Book, Big Story

August 28, 2015 / 0 Comments

The Prince’s Poison Cup

My daughter once told me, “When I’m at a friend’s house, I go straight for the books.” I loved this, because I do that, too: when invited to a friend’s house for the first time, I gravitate toward the bookshelf (especially if they have bookshelves, plural), and scan the spines for familiar titles.

I know that friendship will come easily when I see certain books lining their shelves, or better yet, when this new friend follows me to the bookshelf, leans over my shoulder and says, “You like that one? Then you have to read this.” Before I know it, my arms are full of new books.

I met The Prince’s Poison Cup at a just such a new friend’s house. As we chatted, I flipped it open carelessly and found myself confronted with an illustration so beautiful that it moved me to tears at once: a father, a king, holding his son in the deepest of embraces, both of them radiant with light.

The Prince's Poison Cup | Little Book, Big Story

I didn’t care what the book was about—we needed our very own copy. And when we did get our copy, I found that it was an allegory of quality and depth, written around the verse, “Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?” (John 18:11b). R. C. Sproul puts his Bible knowledge to good use as he weaves the gospel through this story of a prince who rescued his Father’s people by . . . but wait. I won’t give the story away.

I will tell you that Justin Gerard’s illustrations do more than display the story—they interact with it, advancing the plot in beautiful double spreads. This is a story that will appeal to heroic little boys, but that has also captured the hearts of my girly girls, perhaps because it is full of the elements of the Best Story Ever (you know the one).

The Prince’s Poison Cup
R. C. Sproul, Justin Gerard (2008)

Today’s summer rerun first appeared on June 14, 2013.

June 27, 2014 / 0 Comments

The Lightlings

If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time at all, you’ve heard about R. C. Sproul’s picture books. You know that he writes parables for children that encapsulate the gospel and that he favors the voice of a grandparent talking to a child. His stories usually go like this:

1. Child has problem.

2. Grandpa comes for dinner, listens to child’s problem; responds with bewitching phrase, like, “I think I might know a story about that.”

3. Child goes wide-eyed, listens in wonder.

4. Grandpa tells story, and it is the gospel, every time.

Like Sproul’s other books, The Prince’s Poison Cup and The Donkey Who Carried a King, The Lightlings gives families an idea of how the Gospel appears in even the smallest of challenges. The story has to do with a fear of the dark, but it also has to do with the God who created the light and the dark and who reached into the dark to rescue the people that He loved. It works on two levels at once so skillfully that we have given this book to a friend whose son was afraid of the dark and heard later that it was, in fact, helpful for him at bedtime, because it reminded him both that God was greater than his fears and that he wasn’t alone in being afraid of the dark.

But Sproul does more than tell a good story: at the back of each book is a catechism-style appendix that answers the many questions that children might have about the story with verses straight from Scripture. If it’s helpful for families to see that the Gospel can meet them in the daily business of life, it’s equally helpful to know that the Bible can give satisfying answers to our questions.

Lastly, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Justin Gerard’s illustrations. To put it simply, they glow: he uses light and dark skillfully to expand the tale of The King of Light and his subjects, and contains a quality that I’ll call, for lack of a less cliche description, “breath-taking.” In his work, I’m learning, there’s typically one picture per book that makes me say softly, “Wow.” I don’t know how he does it.

The Lightlings
R. C. Sproul, Justin Gerard (2006)

April 11, 2014 / 1 Comment

The Donkey Who Carried a King

If there’s any approach to telling a Bible story that makes me immediately suspicious, it’s the one where an author frames the story within a neat moral. And if there’s any approach to telling a Bible story that means well but often gets things awfully wrong, it’s the one where an author whisks a character off the sidelines and tells the story through that character’s eyes.

And yet, if there’s any author out there who can masterfully wield both of those approaches in the same book, it’s R. C. Sproul, author of countless books on theology for both children and adults.

In The Donkey Who Carried a King, the previously side-lined character is, obviously, the donkey of Palm Sunday fame. The neat moral is—well, I’ll let you read it for yourself. But it works well with the story, that’s the part I’d like to emphasize. And it’s the sort of moral we want to bring home to our kids.

The Donkey Who Carried a King | Little Book, Big Story

Sproul takes this seemingly unappreciated donkey and uses him to tell a crucial part of The Big Story, reminding us gently that it was precisely the quality that the donkey, Davey, most lamented in himself that made him most suited to carry a king. Chuck Groenick’s illustrations bring a delightful depth to the story as well, amplifying Sproul’s words with color and texture.

We—that is, I—have a penchant for buying books at the slightest provocation (I’ve written about this before), and one of the seasons that brings this penchant to the forefront is Easter, when I often buy a new Easter book or two for our Lenten enjoyment, as well as a new, theologically rich book for each child to open on Easter morning and read all year round. The Donkey Who Carried a King met both requirements: lately, Sarah has been smitten with two of Sproul’s other books, The Prince’s Poison Cup and The Lightlings, so we picked this one for her, thinking it would make a great year-round reminder of the Cross.

In case you missed it: yes, our children get books on Easter morning, plus, like, two pieces of chocolate or something. We have our priorities. And Phoebe, who can’t eat chocolate, will be getting one of these:

The Donkey Who Carried a King
R. C. Sproul, Chuck Groenink (2012)

Tag: r.c. sproul (page 1 of 1)

The Prince’s Poison Cup

The Lightlings

The Donkey Who Carried a King

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