An interactive "Bible" for your little active learner
Written: May 12 '05
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Written in interactive style for active learners, sturdy pages, good Old Testament selections
Cons: Sentimental cartoon illustrations, prayers sometimes too simplified for older children, New Testament material thin
The Bottom Line: The great interactive story technique makes this worth adding to your family's Bible Storybook collection.
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| befus's Full Review: Robin Currie - The Baby Bible Storybook |
As a parent actively seeking ways to help my young daughter learn to love and understand the Bible, I appreciate the hard work that goes into the making of many children's Bible storybooks and introductory "Bibles." The Bible is a large and complex book full of all kinds of writing -- narrative, poetry, prayers, gospels, parables, prophetic visions -- just to name a few. I'm sure it's not an easy challenge to decide what stories and characters to focus on, and how to distill (without distorting) important themes into language a child can grasp and respond to.
It's a worthwhile challenge though, because children are spiritually hungry little beings, ready to ask and learn about God and the world and the relation between the two. They can often absorb and learn far more than we realize regarding spiritual truth. I'm thankful for the good ways in which my own early spiritual hunger was nourished by my mother and other good teachers. Now it is my turn to help shape my daughter's spiritual growth.
We have read the actual Bible aloud to our daughter since she was born, and we continue to do that each night during family devotions. Much of the language is "over her head" right now, but that's OK. We want her steeped in the language itself, familiar with the sounds and images of the Scriptures, and comfortable with the fact that reading the Bible is as much a part of daily routine as eating, sleeping, playing and praying. Still, there come moments when we need to sit down and offer Bible stories and Christian teaching specifically on her level. For those moments, we often turn to Bible storybooks created with young children (toddlers and preschoolers) specifically in mind.
I've been somewhat dismayed by the lack of good Bible resources for this age group, though I've been told the field is improving. It's very difficult to find books that are both well-written (age appropriate but not dumbed down) and well-illustrated. In the coming months, I hope to offer a number of reviews of Bible storybooks/picture book and prayer books we have used, to try to help other parents who may be on the lookout for good resources. My perspective is primarily that of a Christian parent (though it will also be informed secondarily by my teaching experience and my studies in theology).
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For her first birthday, my daughter received a copy of The Baby Bible Storybook from Grandma. This brightly colored, sturdy board book is a collection of 22 Bible stories, 15 from the Old Testament and 7 from the New Testament. It's written by Robin Currie and illustrated by Cindy Adams. Each story gets a two page spread, so all in all it's a 44 page book, with a presentation page in front that can be written on if the book is given as a gift. The pages are very thick and sturdy so even young teethers can't do much damage, and the cover is reinforced so it's essentially a hard-back cover.
We were grateful for the thoughtful gift -- we always appreciate it when our daughter's grandparents contribute to her spiritual library. But to be honest, the book sat on the shelf, relatively unused, for about another year. There were several reasons for this: at the time, we were using (with good success) another Bible storybook or two. Then there was the fact that, although the word "Baby" is in the title of this book, it is written in an interactive learning style that benefits best the active, imitating learning styles of children around the age of 2. My daughter really did not become interested in the book until she was about 2 when suddenly, it became a real hit.
The other reason for the book's lack of use was, I confess, because my first hopeful perusal left me less impressed than I'd hoped. This was due in large part to the illustrations. I know we all have different ideas about what makes "good art" or even, more narrowly, different ideas about what makes appealing, attractive art for children. Some people may like the illustrations here because they are cheerful, colorful and simple, and thus somewhat appealing to a younger audience. Frankly, I found them dreadful. When I think about the rich, many-layered and amazing stories of the Bible, a tribute to the rich creativity of God and of the people God has made, I feel like those stories should call forth the best art possible. What's on offer here is essentially coloring book type drawings for what looks like an animated cartoon whose main characters are a cross between kewpie dolls and precious moment figurines. All of the characters are drawn very uniformly, with round faces, huge eyes, dutch-boy/dutch-girl type hair, red-apple cheeks, and cheerful smiles. The pictures ooze a kind of sweet, treacly sentimentalism that just seemed far too "cute" for the rich, complex stories and characters they were representing. To be completely fair, this is my own aesthetic judgment. My daughter doesn't seem to mind the pictures one way or another -- they clearly don't bug her as religious "kitsch" the way they do me; but neither do they engage her the way good art does in a number of her finer quality picture books.
I don't know if I would recommend this book if the art had to stand alone, or if the text felt as sentimentalized as the art. What redeems this book is its wonderfully simple yet interactive retellings of some important Bible stories. The author, Robin Currie, knows that two year olds are not passive little listeners, but that they learn actively by imitating, doing, moving, and responding to repetition.
Each story is told in a few short phrases, broken up every sentence or two with an activity or question. The very first story, titled "God Made Everything" begins Long ago there was nothing in the world -- no cars or dogs or ice cream. Everything was dark. Then in italics, it suggests: Close your eyes and see how dark it was. Next you read how God did a wonderful thing and made the sun, moon and stars, followed by the instruction to Open your eyes and see the light. Finally, the story lists a number of things God made, and ends with the statement that God made you too and the suggestion to Point to yourself.
Every story is like this, with good activity instructions to involve your young pre-reader in the stories. Once my daughter "discovered" this book, she asked for it many times. Although the novelty has worn off a bit now, she still enjoys it; she especially loves doing the various motions. These include activities such as: pretending to hammer (Noah hammering to make the ark), wiggling fingers (to show how it rained after Noah made the ark), folding your arms to rock a baby (the way Sarah rocked baby Isaac), pretending to blow a trumpet (around the walls of Jericho), making a fist to show how strong you are (Samson), pretending to stir dough to make bread (Ruth making bread to share with Naomi), pointing to your ears to show how you hear (the way Samuel heard God call him). My daughter's favorite motion is definitely opening her mouth wide like the big fish that spit out Jonah!
Each story includes 2 or 3 motions, or occasionally a couple of motions and a question to answer, such as "what makes you sad?" or "what do you like to eat?" always connected in some way to the story. What we loved about this interactive approach was the way we could involve our two-year old in the stories through the use of signs and hand-motions -- incredibly important in her case, since she has struggled with a rather significant language delay.
The other asset to the book is that each story includes a reference to the Scripture passage on which it's based (so with older children, you can go straight to the Bible if they want to hear "more!") and each story ends with a one or two line prayer you can pray with your child, again based on the story. These are very simple prayers like: Thank you, God, for taking care of me. Amen which is prayed after reading about how God took care of Daniel in the lion's den. Although I think repetition is important for a child, I do think some of these prayers get a bit too repetitive, and I've changed a few to incorporate or reinforce what I feel is a more key element of the story. For instance, since the focus of the Samuel story is about how Samuel listened to God calling him, and since listening is such a key theme both in the Bible and in our household, I tend to focus the prayer on asking God to help us "listen" and "obey" him, rather than on the more generic "show me how to help you" that is printed in the book. In another instance, in the New Testament story of Jesus' baptism, the prayer rightly focuses on obedience, but I find it helpful to focus the prayer more on how we're imitating Jesus' obedience, i.e. "help me to be like Jesus and do what you ask me to do" rather than the more generic "help me to do good things." I don't really count this as a criticism of the way the prayers are written -- they are useful as they are. I just think in some cases they could be "deepened" a bit to flow more naturally from the story itself and to deepen a child's spiritual understanding a bit more.
The Old Testament selections are familiar and wonderful: creation, Noah, God's promise to Abraham and Sarah, Jacob's ladder of angels, Joseph's coat, Moses and the burning bush, Joshua and Caleb going into the promised land, the walls of Jericho, Samson, Ruth, Samuel, David and Goliath, Elijah praying, Jonah and Daniel. The New Testament choices are fine, but skimp a lot: we jump from Jesus' birth to his baptism and then on his visit with Mary and Martha (which I'm glad was included!), Zaccheus, the resurrection, Peter preaching, and Paul's conversion. It seems very odd that not a single healing or miracle story from the Gospels is represented here. Not only are they important in showing us who Jesus is, but they often provide some of the most accessible and interesting stories for young children. I was amazed that Lazarus was missing, but then so was Jesus walking on the water or feeding the 5,000 (which, among other strengths, has a child in the narrative -- the little child who gives up his 5 loaves and 2 fish.)
The biggest con from the New Testament section is one that I've found in other Bible storybooks from time to time: the decision to gloss over Jesus' death in favor of rushing to the "happy ending." I'm not suggesting that you try to make a toddler linger on the details of the crucifixion, but it seems important to talk about Jesus' death both in terms of who he is and what it means for us, and because the resurrection frankly doesn't make a lot of sense without it. The resurrection story here does have pictures of the cross in the background, and it does mention that Jesus' friends were sad because some people took him away so that they thought they wouldn't see him again. But it jumps from there to "Jesus is alive again!" without ever actually mentioning the fact that he died. This is another place where I supplement with my own words and teaching.
All in all, The Baby Bible Storybook is well worth using because of its creative use of interactive storytelling. Just be aware of its weaknesses and definitely utilize it in combination with other Bible story books and your own retellings of Bible stories. If half stars were allowed, I'd probably give this 3 1/2 overall, but will move that on up to 4, especially since it was such a help to us during a time when my daughter relied heavily on sign language for communicating.
The book was published by ChariotVictor (a division of Cook Communications) in 1994. It's listed as recommended for children 0-3, but I think it's most helpful for children 18 months and up.
copyright 2005, befus
Recommended:
Yes
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