An Illustrated Bible for Young Children
Copyright © June 1, 2017 by Robert Wayne Atkins, P.E.
All Rights Reserved.
On several occasions during the last few months my five-year old granddaughter has mentioned that she did not have her own Bible. Each time I reminded her that she did have lots of small story books that contained entire stories from the Bible, such as the creation of the world, the baby Moses, David and Goliath, Daniel in the Lion's Den, the birth of Jesus, and so on, and that each of those story books had nice pictures on almost every page to help her better understand the story. And she would always say yes ... but ... she had already looked at all of those story books lots and lots and lots of times and she wanted a real Bible like an adult.
A few years ago I gave her mother (my daughter) a copy of "The Golden Children's Bible". When I asked my daughter about that Bible she told me that the stories in that Bible were well written but they were too long and they contained some words that a young child doesn't know. Therefore my five-year old granddaughter would lose interest in the story before it was finished. On the other hand, the small story book Bible stories had fewer words on each page and the stories were more enjoyable to read and they kept my granddaughter's attention better. "The Golden Children's Bible" would be a very good Bible for a child that was at least 9 or 10 years old but it may be too advanced for most children in the 5 to 8 year age group. Therefore I began looking for a good illustrated Bible for younger children.
The Bible I selected was "The Complete Illustrated Children's Bible." I made my choice after reading the reviews of many different parents about many different children's Bibles on Amazon. The primary negative comment about this Bible was that it would pull apart from the spine almost immediately when it was used. When I received the Bible I was amazed at the quality of the hard cover of the book and the quality of the pictures on every page inside the Bible. However, when I lifted the Bible up to carefully inspect the way it was glued to its spine I immediately saw the problem that had been described by other parents on Amazon. The pages were well attached to a piece of material that had already come loose from the spine. I realized that the glue was either defective or the gluing operation had not used enough glue to do the job. Except for this one serious problem I was extremely pleased with Bible.
To correct this problem I taped an ordinary cotton swab to the end of a long straight stick (a kitchen table knife would also have worked well). I used ordinary transparent tape to secure the cotton swab securely to the end of the stick so that only the end of the cotton swab was extending beyond the end of the stick. Then I coated the tip of the cotton swab with Elmer's Glue-All (white multi-purpose glue) and I inserted the glue on the cotton swab between the pages and the spine of the book where the original glue had come undone. I continued to gradually insert more glue from the center of the spine to the outside edge of the spine and from the right side to the left side. Then I rotated the book upside down and I repeated this same process on the other half of the inside spine of the book. When I had the entire inside spine covered with glue then I closed the covers of the book together so that the pages were pressed down firmly against the inside spine of the book. I used a tissue to carefully wipe up the small amount of glue that was squeezed out of the book at both ends. Then I stood the book on its spine flat on the floor but leaning against the wall so the pages would continue to press down on the spine and the glue could dry. Then I waited 24 hours. When I picked the book up the next day the problem had been corrected. I could now open the book and flip through the pages of the book and the pages remained firmly attached to the spine.
My granddaughter has had the Bible for two weeks and when I visited her I looked carefully at the book at it was still in excellent condition. Her mother reads her a Bible story from the book every day and my granddaughter is finally getting to hear "all" the stories in the Bible and not just a few of them. She is also improving her ability to read because her mother reads the stories to her slowly so she can look at each word as her mother says the words. My granddaughter already recognizes about 200 of the most common words (big, for, red, you, man, God, Jesus, the, up, sun, mine, love, open, etc.) and this Bible is helping to expose her to more of the words she needs to learn.
This Bible contains approximately 294 stories. Each story is told on two pages that face one other. Each picture is spread across the two pages from the left to the right across the center of the book, and each picture is printed all the way to the edge of all the pages. There is no white border around the pages. The words are printed on an area of the picture where the words can be easily read. Sometimes all the words are on either the left or right page depending on the picture, and sometimes the words are on both pages due to the available space on each page where words could be printed and still be easy to read.
Some of the Bible stories only take two pages because the entire story can be condensed into two pages. However, some of the Bible stories take several pages because the story is a long one, such as the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis. The Bible also includes some of the most popular Psalms. It also includes the Proverbs on several pages where a selection of Proverbs that deal with a specific issue, such as "love", are consolidated into one topic heading to help the child more easily understand what God wants us to know about that topic in Proverbs.
Unlike some other children's Bible, this one does not "add" material to a story or deviate from the original bible story with material that is not in the Bible. Instead, this Bible follows the original story as it is told in the Bible but it carefully condenses the story without using words that a young child probably does not understand.
In summary, I am very pleased with this version of the Bible for young children and I highly recommend it even with its current production flaw of a loose binding. I suspect that this problem did not exist with the first printing of this Bible, and that it will be corrected with the next printing of this Bible. However, the current production run of this Bible does contain this problem. If you have an immediate need for a really good illustrated Bible for children who are in the 5 to 8 year age group, then I suggest that you consider purchasing this Bible now and that you correct the loose binding problem yourself with some Elmer's Glue-All (white multi-purpose glue for paper, cloth, leather, and other porous materials).
Respectfully,
Grandpappy.
Grandpappy's e-mail address is: RobertWayneAtkins@hotmail.com