Max Lucado, Randy Frazee, and Karen Davis Hill’s The Story for Children
Description
Parents have the important charge of raising their impressionable, trusting children into capable, competent adults. Easier said than done.
To help parents teach their children about God and his love for us, proficient authors Max Lucado and Randy Frazee, have teamed with author and editor Karen Davis Hill, to create The Story for Children. A storybook bible, it is a chronological telling of many classic Biblical stories, fully illustrated by the accomplished Fausto Bianchi, and brought together in the authors’ effort to help parents raise their children to be confident in their faith and fascinated by the truths in Scripture.
Disclosure
I personally bought this book. There was no agreement with the author, publisher, or any third party that I would publish a review. The following review is unsolicited, unbiased, and all opinions are my own.
Review – Spoiler Free
I was drawn to The Story for Children from the moment I first saw the cover. I loved the artwork and wanted more of it. Looking into it, I realized that it was part of a series of books and studies that presented the Bible in an abridged, chronological format, focusing on the overarching story of God’s love for his people. We intended to read this with our children, as my Husband and I read The Story and its companion book, Exploring the Story.
Our plan completely flopped due to it being difficult to match up the timing of the chapters across The Story and The Story for Children (NOTE: The Story for Children is not designed to be read alongside the adult The Story, so this is a fail on my scheduling and not on the book’s design), but more importantly it fell apart due to the poor quality of The Story. We had pretty achievable expectations for The Story and it fell very short (read about that in my review here). Despite our plans flopping, and The Story becoming more and more annoying to read, I read The Story for Children on its own, and I wasn’t nearly as irritated with it as I was with The Story, but I also wasn’t impressed.
Let’s start with its best aspect: The Story for Children is visually beautiful, I picked it up for the illustrations, and I liked it most for the illustrations. I love how different they are from usual Bible depictions – clothes actually look like clothes, not just a striped tunic, all sorts of animals are everywhere, there is an overall feel of movement to the illustrations, and everything has layers and layers of detail. I have no idea how accurate to the time the illustrations are, and there are a few illustrations that leave you wondering if livestock wandered through people’s homes at the time, but overall I loved them.
Unfortunately, The Story for Children’s storytelling adaptation did not sweep me off my feet like the illustrations did, but was more run of the mill, pretty much what you’d expect from a children’s Bible, not better and not worse.
The Story for Children is exactly what it’s title says: a storybook Bible for children, and therein lies the difficulty. The Bible on its own can be difficult to interpret and any handful of well-meaning theologians can come to different conclusions about what certain passages mean, and even about what stories within the Bible are most important. So in this review, I’m not going to touch about what has or has not been left out or included in The Story for Children, I’m just going to look at the presentation of what stories have been included.
Broken up into 31 chapters, some with multiple sections and some with only one section, The Story for Children is a quick read. At the beginning of each chapter there is a chapter title, a related Bible verse, and a short summary that sets the scene for the chapter, and each section is a different story. I love the concept of the summaries, and some of them are worded wonderfully – easily bridging the many years’ gap between two chapters and setting the tone perfectly for children to understand why people in a certain story act the way they do. But others miss the point – glossing over an aspect so much that it changes the characters’ apparent motivations.
Each section ends with a “God’s Message” – a few lines that are written as if God is speaking them, that try to summarize the section’s takeaway. At first these seem to be directed at the reader, because they address “you”, but after reading a few it becomes apparent that it is supposed to be God speaking to the characters within the story that was told in that section. I love the idea of each story having a summary pointing to God’s love, especially in a book for children where the overarching ideas can easily get lost, but the way it is done here is actually more confusing and leaves you wondering what the main takeaway actually is.
Finally, looking at the story adaptations themselves, I can’t say it’s surprising that some are good and some are bad. Some hit the mark perfectly and others muddle details or distort things. Smaller adaptation details (ex: only telling about the cows in Pharaoh’s dream that Joseph interpreted in Genesis 41, and skipping over the heads of grain) can be glossed over, as they actually make the reading as a storybook easier. Yet larger adaptation details (ex: “Esther wasn’t sure she could find the courage to argue against powerful Haman.” Pg 172, as opposed to “… any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned the king has but one law: that they be put to death unless the king extends the gold scepter to them and spares their lives. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king.” Esther 4:11b) muddy the water and the focal point of the story being told shifts (ex: from Esther worrying about presenting a convincing argument, to her concerned for her very life).
Overall, I liked The Story for Children, but I don’t think it was very good. The storytelling adaptation was average and included some minor errors as well as some larger ones, while the illustrations are truly what carried the book for me. If you’re looking for a storybook Bible for your children, this is OK; it’s not fantastic but it’s also not worse than some others I’ve read. I will not be keeping this or the companion books I read (again, find my review of The Story and Exploring the Story here), and I will also be hesitant to read other work by Lucado, a popular Christian author whose name no longer carries any ‘seal of approval’ for me. I will also, definitely be on the lookout for other works illustrated by Bianchi, as his illustrations are too good to deprive my home library of.
Quote
Our prayer is that these stories will compel your child’s fascination with Scripture, lay a foundation for a life of faith, and remind them: “The word of God is living and active …” Hebrews 4:12 (NIV).
The Story for Children, Max Lucado, Randy Frazee, and Karen Davis Hill
Ratings
- Quality of Writing – 3
- Ease of Reading – 3
- Insight – 2
- Ease of Application – 2
- Pictures/ Illustrations – 5
- Appropriate for Intended Age – 4
- Overall Enjoyment – 2
- Final Rating – 3 (Actual: 3.0) – Liked It
Want to learn more about the numbers I use for rating, and the qualities I’m thinking about when writing a book review? Check out my post How I Rate and Review.