Tuesday, September 8, 2009

The Jesus Book--Book Review

Recently, well, actually about a month ago, I received another book to review. This time a children's book--The Jesus Book by Stephen Elkins. This colorful children's book of close to 100 pages, which includes a thirty song music CD, describes itself as the "Ultimate Who, What, When, Where, and Why Book" about Jesus. I found it to be very much based on Scripture. The book is divided into the following sections: Who Jesus Is, What Jesus Did, What Jesus Taught, When It Happened, Where It Happened, Why It Happened, and How It Happened. Each of these sections has a number of Scripture sited answers to these questions, brief summaries of what the Bible actually says.
For example, in the first section, Who Is Jesus, the first answer provided about who He is says "The prophets said Jesus was the Promised One." The Scripture sited is Isaiah 9:6 and the summary explains who prophets were and what they did. Then it briefly tells about Isaiah and what he told about Christ in this passage, followed by briefly mentioning other prophets who spoke about Christ and what they said about where He would be born and how He would die.
That's just the first page! This book is full of Scripture referenced information to teach little ones all about Jesus in a way that is very easy to understand. If reading this book to little ones, I believe the appropriate age could be as young as any three year old who can sit still for at least five or ten minutes to listen to just one page per sitting. However, children in early elementary grades could easily benefit from the information contained here because as you get further along in the book there are details, especially in the Where Did It Happen section, that they may not know. I would think it could be read by even 3rd or 4th graders. I would say that the music is probably more for younger children, however, I have a nine year old who enjoys it also. The illustrations are very appealing, also.
I really like this book. I chose it intending to give it to my six year old for Christmas, but the information is presented so well that I decided to use it as his main Bible curriculum for school. We are going to have a great time with this book!

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