The Jesus Storybook Bible

A couple of months ago, we purchased for our family a wonderful new children's Bible called The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every story whispers his name. We have now read through this Bible two times with Calvin. It is quite delightful and Calvin loves it.

Each Bible story is 4-6 pages of text. At first, I thought it was going to be too much for a two-year-old. Really, though, it is written in such an engaging way, with great illustrations, that Calvin is hooked. Every so often, the illustration and text will be turned vertically down two pages--an extra fun element.

But here is the best part: it teaches children that the entire Bible is about Jesus. For example, tonight we read Noah and the ark. The end of the story reads like this, "It wasn't long before everything went wrong again, but God wasn't surprised, he knew this would happen. That's why, before the beginning of time, he had another plan--a better plan. A plan not to destroy the world [by flood], but to rescue it--a plan to one day send his own Son, the Rescuer. "

And this from the story of Joseph: "One day, God would send another Prince, a young Prince whose heart would break. Like Joseph, he would leave his home and his Father. His brothers would hate him and want him dead. He would be sold for pieces of silver. He would be punished even though he had done nothing wrong. But God would use everything that happened to this young Prince--even the bad things--to do something good: to forgive the sins of the whole world."

This Bible is probably best for ages 2-6, perhaps even a little older, and would be good for young readers, too. The parenthetical text is sometimes a little too silly for a Bible, and I often skip those parts. Aside from that, a wonderful children's Bible!