My First Bible in Pictures (with handle)

Rating:
Summary: Great pictures, easy reader, good bedtime Bible stories
Review: Are you looking for a bedtime Bible story book for preschoolers and early readers? Look no further. Frances Hook, reknown Sunday School Bible story artist did the artwork for this beginner's Bible. The artwork depicts the story beautifully and the text is simple enough for early readers to have success and asks questions that encourage interactions with your child.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing - my first Amazon.com return ever
Review: I bought this Bible for my kids, who begin Sunday school this year and who have been asking questions about the children's bulletins they receive at church. I thought the idea of pictures and short re-tellings of Bible stories would work for them.

Unfortunately, these stories are SO short, they frustrate even me--and I know the whole story! One example: "Jesus has become a big boy. He is twelve years old. He is in the Temple talking to the leaders of God's people. Jesus is listening to them and asking them questions. They were all surprised at his good answers. Why are the men surprised? Luke 2"

Now, I like the questions at the end--although they're risky, because sometimes the lesson I want my children to learn from a passage differs from Taylor's lesson. But this re-telling of Jesus in the Temple leaves out the best part: Mary and Joseph's frantic search for their missing son, and Jesus' reminder to them that he needed to be in His Father's house.

Other odd omissions: Noah's Ark gets three separate picture and story combinations, but the third picture is of the Ark on the waters during the rainstorm. Where's the rainbow? God's promise? All it says is that God protected Noah and his family during the flood. Later, the story of Samuel hearing God's voice in the Temple is told...but Hannah doesn't get a story at all. And yet the story of Absalom DOES merit a picture: one of a man hanging by his hair in the branches of a tree. That's just not a visual I need to share with my three-year-olds.

I did a little more research, and decided to buy Karyn Henley's "Beginners Bible" instead. I'm not thrilled with the cartoonish people, but the layout of the Creation story and the Table of Contents look like a much, much better fit for our family.

Rating:
Summary: A SUBLIME BOOK ILLUSTRATED BY A SUBLIME ARTIST
Review: I've spent many years teaching Religion to young children and their parents, and to my own sons as well. Because people's physical image of God comes primarily from artistic representations, and because 99.99% of religious art portrays a stern, judgmental deity complete with faraway gaze, we can be seriously put off in our search for spiritual inspiration and a life-altering relationship. Then comes Frances Hook, who shows us a Jesus you would want to meet, get to know and have present in your life. What a revolution could evolve if every newborn were gifted with this book, if the God shown here were to take residence in the graphic mind of every growing child, if this image of a living, laughing, loving Deity were to be the God we believed in. Each time I give the gift of a religious book illustrated by this artist, I feel I'm giving so much more than paper and print.