The Bible for Young Children

The pictures are colorful and interesting, and the text is perfect for young children (short, to the point). This book isn't as creative as the author's other books, but it does a good job explaining Bible stories. I like how it even take a stab at the book of Revelation and how it emphasizes Jesus.

I'm not very impressed by the way the stories are told.

For a speed through of the Bible, The Bible for Young Children is an attractive option. Offering a quick, simple overview of the Bible, this book by Marie-Helene Delval begins with a simplified version of creation. God creates light, the sky, moon, stars, plants, birds, and animals. Then, skipping over the creation of humans, Delval writes: "God gave the earth to men and women and their children so they could love there and make it even more beautiful!"This story easily segues in the story of Noah: "But then people became mean, so mean that God was sorry that he had given them the world." But the story of Noah doesn't flow so smoothly into the next story: Abraham and Sarah. In fact, there is no transition at all between the two stories. Noah's story ends. Turn the page. Abraham's story begins. There is no break of any kind.The rest of the book proceeds in this manner, running one famous Bible story into the next, mostly without transition. We learn about Jacob and the "ladder of light," baby Moses, Moses and the burning bush, God parting the sea, Moses recieving the Ten Commandments, Samuel, the annointing of David, David and Goliath, King Solomon asking for wisdom and building God's temple, Jonah, Daniel and the lions, Isaiah predicting Jesus' birth, Jesus' birth (at it's very simpliest: "This great king came - the Son of God! He was a baby, born in a stable. Mary was his mother, and he was called Jesus."), a brief explanation of Jesus choosing his diciples, the parable of the lost sheep, a brief explanation that Jesus healed people, a brief explanation that some people loved Jesus and called him the Son of God but others wanted to kill him, and a brief explanation of Jesus' death and ressurrection. The book ends: "Jesus is alive forever! Jesus is the light that is stronger than the darkness!"What I Like: I have never read a more fast-faced overview of the Bible for young children. Delval covers the basics, giving kids an almost instant idea of what is in the Bible. (Although not necessarily what the Bible is about; more on that in a moment.) The illustrations by Gotting are a bit dark in color at times, but they are refreshing, impressionistic, and less "dumbed down" than what's offered in many children's Bibles.What I Dislike: I wish there were better transitions throughout the book. If the author could not transition via words, some sort of visual break would have been helpful. I also wish more emphasis was put on Jesus, even in the Old Testament stories. I'm also not thrilled with the portrayal of Jesus - it leaves out the most important part of the Gospel. According to Delval, Jesus' message was simply: ""Listen to the good news! God loves you all! You are his dear children!"I also find it odd that the author mentions the Ten Commandments a couple of times, but never tells us what they are. (The accompanying illustrations show the Commandments in Hebrew, not English.) Also, there are times when the text is borderline inaccurate. For example, Delval says the Hebrews had to "work like slaves" for the Egyptians. In fact, they worked exactly like slaves because they were slaves. In another example, when writing about the resurrection, the author says Jesus rose "in the morning." This makes it sound like he wasn't dead for three days.Overall Rating: Despite the downsides to this book, I rather like the "speed through" aspect of it, and think it makes an interesting introduction to the Bible. On this basis, I give it a rating of Good.Kristina Seleshanko, Christian Children's Book Review

The self-described purpose of The Bible For Young Children is described as follows: "This selection of Bible stories, paraphrased for young readers, uses language and imagery appropriate for children while remaining faithful to the spirit of the biblical texts." I would suggest that it does neither really well. However, all of my critiques are for content and not for the illustrations. I found the illustrations captivating and fresh, a nice change from the children's books filled with stock images.However, I found the text itself a bit disappointing both in form and content. First, the content. I found myself confused as to whether this was a story or a collection of isolated events. In some in instances, one narrative flowed right into the other. It read like an actual narrative. This was great but a rarity. More often, there was a major disconnect between the pages. For example, after talking about Noah's flood, which ended with, "This was God's promise that he would never, ever again destroy the earth like this," the next page begins, "Abraham and Sarah were old and they didn't [actually though, "couldn't" is more appropriate and actually part of the point of the story] have any children." How are those related? Are they? Also, the story begins with God saying "Light!" And the next page begins "God made the sky..." I felt like I was starting and stopping every page and that the book couldn't stay focused. This is representative of how the whole book reads. There has to be a better way to have the story flow and not make the reader feel like there are big gaps in the storyline.The content itself was also a little disconcerting, but since my education and training is in Hebrew Bible, I recognize that I might just be a little too sensitive. For example, what does it mean for the world to "look like nothing"? It reminds me of Peterson's "soup of nothingness." To skip several other issues, I was also a little concerned with the portrayal of Jesus: "Jesus said to everyone he met, "Listen to the good news! God loves you all! You are his dear children!" This sounds a litle more like the Jesus of 21st century America rather than Jesus I see in the New Testament. The content also changes details that don't need to be changed to make the story more kid-friendly. For example, why have Jesus resurrect "in the morning" instead of "the third morning"?It seems that if the author wanted to pick up on the "spirit" of the Bible, it would have been more appropriate to find the big-picture narrative of the Bible and pick episodes that were most important to the story, rather than trying to piece it together using only the most "popular" episodes from the Bible. Most importantly, if the tradition of the Scripture is as important to pass down to our children as the Scriptures themselves say they are, it's important that any book claiming to be "The Bible" for young children should represent, as the preface says, the "spirit of the biblical texts." And this could have easily been accomplished in this volume, but was not.