The Bible contains a wealth of stories for parents, grandparents, and church school teachers to read and discuss with very young children, so deciding which ones to include and which to omit can be a hard call, but then, a Bible lover and reviewer who’s agreed to give an honest review might have a hard time too!
In The Rhyme Bible Storybook For Toddler, I found much to recommend in the quality of this sturdy kid-sized book with its lively writing and colorful artwork. I also liked the evidence of God’s love and care as shown in the stories from Creation through Moses but found other choices either odd or inappropriate for toddlers.
For example, there’s no story of the beloved Patriarch of the Jews, Muslims, and Christians – Abraham, whose examples of faith foster faith and open lines of communication among religious peoples. So I was perplexed to see The Rhyme Bible Storybook For Toddler skip from Moses to David – but not David the shepherd with loving example of the Good Shepherd, nor David the poet and Psalmist, nor David the good king who united God’s people. Instead, the storybook chose to focus on David’s slinging a rock at Goliath and bringing down a bullying giant. Is that the message we want to give toddlers – to solve problems by throwing a rock?
Older children can understand the context of that story and also the story of Jonah, where the disobedient missionary gets swallowed by a large fish, but do we want toddlers fearing the ocean more than they naturally do?
Do we want them to have nightmares about being locked in a den of lions as Daniel was in this short book? Again, older children would find that story adventuresome and faith-building, but with so little space for age-appropriate stories for toddlers, I would much prefer telling very young children how Daniel chose to eat good food, rather than how lions might eat him!
Like all of my reviews, this one must be honest, so I have a couple of confessions to make: 1.) When I don’t feel comfortable giving books a 4 or, preferably 5-star review, I usually do not review them at all. However, this one came from BookSneeze, so I have to do an Amazon review too, which I’m sad to say will be 3 stars because of the stories selected. Obviously, I would have made other choices, which brings me to the second confession. 2.) I would love to write a Bible storybook, in rhyme or out.
I’m very happy to say, though, that this storybook ends with the point to which a wealth of Bible stories lead: Letting readers of all ages know, “Jesus Is Alive!”
©2014, Mary Sayler, poet, reviewer, lover of Christ, children, and the Bible
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