By Jan Godfrey and Paola Bertolini Grudina
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
www.tyndale.com
351 Executive Drive
Carol Stream, IL 60188
800-323-9400
This delightful book filled with 66 retellings of favorite Bible stories will captivate young readers and preschoolers ages 3 to 6. The illustrations are richly colored and cleverly presented. For example, the story of Joseph and his brothers shows an aerial view of Joseph in the bottom of a pit with his brothers looking down at him from far above. It really drives home the story visually by showing how alone Joseph must have felt during this time of betrayal. Many of the other illustrations are equally captivating and will spur young listeners to ask excellent questions about faith in God.
The stories are cleverly titled to reach little hearts. For example, the story of Martha and Mary arguing about who should be in the kitchen working is entitled "Trouble in the Kitchen." The story of the Good Samaritan is entitled "The Story of the Kind Stranger." My favorite is the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace, entitled "The Sound of Music." The titles really help to impress God's truth indelibly into little hearts.
The table of contents is clearly laid out and is nice for introducing the idea of "chapters" to young readers. We often read the table of contents to our preschoolers before reading stories. It provides them with an overview of the book and perhaps will instill in them a life-long habit that will help them read complex chapter books in the future. It's also fun for them to point to an entry in the table of contents and then to be "surprised" at which story they've chosen for our read-aloud time! I am always thrilled when books for young children include a table of contents!
The authors did a wonderful job of spanning from Creation to Revelation, while including age-appropriate material to enjoy as a family. Parents will find the Index of Bible stories at the back of the book very helpful! It provides the location of each story in the Bible. This provides a wonderful opportunity for parents to begin reading to their children directly from the Bible after enjoying My
Story Bible. It might have been more helpful, though, to simply include the Scripture references with the actual stories.
This book would be a welcome addition to any family's home library and would make a wonderful gift for families with young children. I'm sure your children will be as thrilled as ours every time reading aloud includes My
Story Bible!
Product review by Karen Yuen, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, November 2009
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