Irresistible Grace Formalist and Hypocrisy Taking a Shortcut

The Pilgrim’s Progress for Children

Posted by Andy Naselli on Jun 7, 2011 in children's literature, John Bunyan | 2 comments

I love John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, and I’m so glad that my almost-three-year-old daughter does, too.

Here are some versions we enjoy:

1. Pictorial Pilgrim’s Progress

It’s illustrated by Joanne Brubaker (Chicago: Moody, 1960).
It’s excellent for young children because there is a picture on every page, and the text is simple and straightforward.
We love reading this book using the Kindle app on my iPad (click “Kindle Edition” in the box here).
The book is especially meaningful to me for reasons that are evident in the below correspondence I had with my former pastor, Mike Bullmore, one year ago:

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[email from me to Mike Bullmore on 6/7/2010]

Dear Mike,

I’m in the process of cataloging my print and electronic library, and I just entered this book in my database:

Bunyan, John. Pictorial Pilgrim’s Progress. Chicago: Moody, 1960.

I opened it up and reread what I wrote on the inside cover:

I read this very book to Michael after he relapsed. He loved to look at the pictures as I read and explained Bunyan’s outstanding allegory. Now Michael is at the glorious end of his difficult journey, and I look forward to seeing him again in the celestial city!

Andy
4/25/2002

A little background:

I’m the second of seven children . . . . In December 1998 (during my freshman year of college), my family was shocked to learn that my youngest brother Michael, who was three years old at the time, had cancer—Stage IV Neuroblastoma. The doctors warned us that Michael had only a ten percent chance to live. Over the next three-and-a-half years, Michael endured chemotherapy, radiation, a bone marrow transplant, two major surgeries, monoclonal antibody treatments, and countless tests. From June 2000 to October 2001, Michael’s cancer was in remission, and for much of the time he felt great. But he started having pain, and we soon learned that his cancer had returned. Hearing this news was as difficult as hearing the initial diagnosis. The doctors told us that there was nothing more they could do to cure him. After a tenacious final battle with cancer, Michael went home to be with the Lord on March 30, 2002.

So then I turned the page and saw who drew the pictures that Michael loved to look at: Joanne Brubaker!

Andy

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Joanne Brubaker is Mike Bullmore’s mother-in-law.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but the day I sent that email was the one-year anniversary of her home-going.

Here’s part of Mike’s reply a few days later:

Andy,

I can’t tell you how meaningful this is. I have my own story about that little book.

I loved it as a kid and would regularly sneak into my sister’s room, steal it off her shelf, and pore over those pictures and wonder if I could someday be like Christian. Many years later I saw that book on a bureau in my new sweetheart’s home. I exclaimed, “Oh I loved that book as a boy! I remember all those pictures.”

She looked at me with a funny look on her face and then realized I wasn’t being ingratiating. She said, “You don’t know, do you?”

I said, “Know what?”

She said, “That my mother drew those pictures.”

How kind of God that my future mother-in-law would have a shaping influence on me as a child. It is something I treasure deeply. . . .

Mike

2. Dangerous Journey: The Story of Pilgrim’s Progress

It’s edited by Oliver Hunkin and illustrated by Alan Parry (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985).
Here’s what my wife and I wrote about it when we reviewed it in 2008: “This is an abridged account of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, a Christian classic that deserves to be part of every child’s theological upbringing. This abridgment vividly captures how Christians persevere in their joyful and dangerous lives, and it richly repays repeated readings. (Charles Haddon Spurgeon read The Pilgrim’s Progress over one hundred times.) The illustrations seem unrefined and sometimes frightening, but no one will confuse who the bad guys are! The language is not always as archaic as the original The Pilgrim’s Progress (which is similar to the KJV), but it is still noticeably older (e.g., its sentence structure, word order, word choice). Our pastor, Dr. Mike Bullmore, enthusiastically recommends Dangerous Journey and adds that all three of his children look back to it as their favorite children’s book.”
Answers in Genesis hosts a narrated video of the book (at the bottom of this page). The video is old and the quality poor, but we enjoy it. (It may be too intense for some children.) It’s divided into nine 15-minute segments:
Or you can watch the whole thing on YouTube (1 hour, 53 minutes):

3. The Pilgrim’s Progress: From This World to That Which Is to Come

It’s edited by C. J. Lovik and illustrated by Mike Wimmer (Wheaton: Crossway, 2009).
I briefly reviewed it in 2009.
It includes Bunyan’s unabridged text, which is too much for young children. But it has thirty full-color, original paintings that children would enjoy.

(Tomorrow’s post includes some sample pictures from each of these three books.)

Update: Here’s a fourth book:

John Bunyan. Pilgrim’s Progress. Edited by Gary Schmidt. Illustrated by Barry Moser. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994.

Large hardcover (12.3 x 9.4 x 0.6 inches):

Small hardcover (8.6 x 6.7 x 0.8 inches):

Young children would appreciate it if the picture-to-text ratio were better, but the text is beautifully written.

2 Responses to “The Pilgrim’s Progress for Children”

Robert Murphy says:
June 7, 2011 at 6:26 am

I bought the first one on your recommendation from Amazon for $0.01 (plus $4 for S&H)!
Matthew Westerholm says:
June 7, 2011 at 9:49 am

I happily recommend the Schmidt/Moser version as well.

Beautiful pictures keep my 4-year-old enthralled while the story engrosses my 9-year-old.