Sweetest Story Bible for Toddlers

As a fan of Diane Stortz, I would recommend her work even if I hadn’t received a free review copy of The Sweetest Story Bible for Toddlers, published by Zonderkidz and kindly sent to me by BookLook Bloggers. Diane’s writing helps children to understand deep truths with minimal explanations on the part of parents, and she’s accurate and poetic too.

Artist Sheila Bailey also does a nice job, creating colorful kid-appealing illustrations, which help to expand the text with one exception. In the drawing of two angels announcing Christ's resurrection, both look, well, depressed, which made no sense to me as I suspect they were rather ecstatic.

Other reviews have already mentioned how this Bible storybook from Zonderkidz is ideal for little girls, and I agree but frankly would have preferred it to include little boys as the title does. But, since the emphasis is on little girls, I, too, wished the story of Esther had been omitted and substituted with one showing Ruth’s love for Naomi. For one thing, little kids can relate to a loving friendship more than bad law-making. Besides, I don’t think young children will have a clue about who a Jewish person is.

Giving this more thought, however, I realized that Bible stories for preschoolers seldom mention the Jews – the very people of God from whom we received the Hebrew Testament and from whom our Lord and Savior comes, which then made me glad about the decision to include Esther.

Whether we communicate bigotry or love, children learn early. So I’m now thinking that special editions of the Bible and storybooks for toddlers, preschoolers, early readers, teens, and beyond will do well to emphasize our Jewish heritage as Christians and as ongoing lovers of God’s Word.


©2014, Mary Harwell Sayler, poet, writer, and reviewer, is a lifelong lover of Christ, the Bible, and the church in all its parts.


The Sweetest Story Bible for Toddlers, padded hardback with board pages




I received my review copy from BookLook Bloggers



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Christmas gifts for all sorts of Bible readers

This post comes later than intended and, very likely, I accidentally omitted some of my favorites or yours. Nevertheless, this will give you a quick list of highly recommended editions of the Bible to check for your Christmas giving and your own Christmas list.

Catholic readers
Catholic Study Bible
Catholic Women’s Bible
Little Rock Catholic Study Bible
Jerusalem Bible
New Catholic Answer Bible
New Jerusalem Bible
Saint Mary’s Press College Study Bible
The Saints Devotional Bible

Children
Adventure Bible for Early Readers,
Adventure Bible,
Bible storybooks for children
Bibles for children
Catholic Children’s Bible
Catholic Teen Bible
Catholic Youth Bible
ESV Children’s Bible
NIV Teen Study Bible

Evangelical readers
ESV Study Bible
Gospel Transformation Bible,
Holman Study Bible
Life Application Study Bible
MacArthur Study Bible,
New American Standard Bible, wide-margin, goatskin

General readers
African Heritage Study Bible
Amplified Bible
Anselm Academic Study Bible
Complete Parallel Bible
Common English Study Bible
The Lutheran Study Bible,
New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha
The Message with deuterocanonical aka apocryphal books
NIV Study Bible
Oxford Study Bible, Revised English Bible with Apocrypha
Thompson Chain Reference


©2014, Mary Harwell Sayler, poet, writer, and reviewer, is a lifelong lover of Christ, the Bible, and the church in all its parts.


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College Study Bible for ever

As soon as I received my review copy of the Saint Mary’s Press College Study Bible, published by Saint Mary’s Press and kindly sent to me by Acta Publications, I realized what a treasure this edition is – not only for college students but for all of us who want to understand Bible people, places, times, and concepts. And so, I really really wish my paperback review copy had its pages sewn into a top quality leather binding to hold up under decades of wear. At present that option is not available, but I hope it will be.

Meanwhile, what a find!

To encourage young people to read the Bible, this edition begins with a “Letter to College Students” written BY two college students, Brigitte Smith and Carolyn Olson, who were “part of developing this special edition of the Bible” with college students in mind. However, Bible lovers from teens to all ages of adults will find excellent “footnotes, maps, photographs, charts, articles, background information, and additional tools to help you in your studies.”

The study aids also help us to connect Holy Scripture with our own lives. For example, “Articles throughout this Bible discuss many of the contemporary social, personal, and spiritual issues that we face each day. By connecting these very real issues to the Scriptures, the articles help the Bible become more meaningful to us and can have a very direct impact on our lives and the choices we make.”

In the opening article, “The Bible: A Light on Our Path,” readers learn about the 5-step process that brought us the Bible, beginning with the events themselves and ending with the biblical canon, which “claims that this book is inspired by God and therefore faithfully teaches those truths that God wishes to teach us for the sake of our salvation.” And so, “This means that the Church cannot teach something that contradicts the Scriptures. However, the Church can teach a truth that has its roots, but not its full flowering, in the Scriptures, as well as something on which the Scriptures remain silent.”

“Understanding Genres and Literary Forms” and “Understanding the Bible in Its Historical and Cultural Contexts” give us useful tools with other helps discussed in “Reading the Bible: Tools for Understanding.” For example, almost everyone with a television set has seen posters with “John 3:16” without necessarily knowing what that means! This article explains by saying, “To locate a particular passage within the Scriptures, three pieces of information are necessary: the name of the book, the chapter, and the particular verse,” then uses John 3:16 as an example.

Other study aids include introductions to each section of the Bible (Pentateuch, Wisdom, Gospels, etc.) with important background information on each individual book. “The Three-Year Cycle of Sunday Lectionary Readings,” a glossary, excellent maps, and a biblical timeline have been included too.

I especially appreciate line drawings throughout the text to show such items as the Ark of the Covenant as well as colorful inserts of “Biblical Art” and charts on such topics as “The Names of God,” the “Deities of the Ancient Middle East,” the “Wonders, Miracles, and Signs in the Old Testament” and the New. In addition, inserts on the significance of numbers, colors, festivals, and more help us to understand the original intent, which is what each of the study aids aims to do, making this edition highly recommended for adults of all ages who want to embrace more fully God’s Word.


©2014, Mary Harwell Sayler, poet, writer, and reviewer, is a lifelong lover of Christ, the Bible, and the church in all its parts.


Saint Mary’s Press College Study Bible, paperback



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