Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

children's literature

Ten Narnia Resources

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My oldest daughter just finished hearing The Chronicles of Narnia for the first time. After we finished The Last Battle, Kara asked wistfully, “Daddy, are there any more Narnia books?” I had to confirm what she already knew: there are only seven Narnia books.

But she’s already looking forward to reading them again and again and again.

We utilized ten resources to enjoy Narnia, and I recommend them all:

1. The Unabridged Books

These are essential. All other resources merely supplement them.

It is pure pleasure to read these aloud to your children. [Read more…] about Ten Narnia Resources

Videos of All 44 Stories in The Jesus Storybook Bible

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Good news: Videos of all 44 stories in The Jesus Storybook Bible are now available. (Before only some of them were available.)

Sally Lloyd-Jones and Sam Shammas. The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name; Curriculum Kit: 44 Lessons for Early–Middle Elementary; with Notes for Teachers Based on Material by Timothy Keller. Grand Rapids: Zonderkidz, 2012.

Bad news: The stories don’t play continuously. You have to click on each individual one. (They are about five minutes each.)

Good news: The videos come on a DVD loaded with PDFs of a new children’s curriculum that supplements The Jesus Storybook Bible. (View two PDFs here: the table of contents and introduction and a sample lesson.)

Related:

  1. Jesus Storybook Bible Deluxe Edition
  2. Theology for Kids
  3. Bible Memory for Young Children
  4. A Good Bible-Story Book with Thousands of Pictures

Seventh-day Adventists

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Yesterday I recommended the “Your Story Hour” dramatized Bible stories for kids. I noticed that they include a lot of extra details (“artistic license” is what I called it), but I didn’t realize “Your Story Hour” is connected to Seventh-day Adventism.

I’ve updated the post, and some former Seventh-day Adventists comment on it. If you know much about Seventh-day Adventism and/or “Your Story Hour,” feel free to contribute to the comments here.

Dramatized Bible Stories for Kids

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Several months ago I learned about audio resources for children from “Your Story Hour.”

I can’t speak for their other products yet, but we’ve enjoyed listening to “The Bible Comes Alive Series,” 120 dramatized Bible stories for kids (2.1 days worth of audio):

About the stories: [Read more…] about Dramatized Bible Stories for Kids

Another Pilgrim’s Progress Book for Children

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I recently highlighted my favorite versions of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress that I’ve read to my three-year-old daughter:

  1. The Pilgrim’s Progress for Children
  2. Formalist and Hypocrisy Taking a Shortcut

Here’s another:

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.

My top two favorites for young children are still the Pictorial Pilgrim’s Progress and Dangerous Journey .

A Good Bible-Story Book with Thousands of Pictures

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I recently finished reading all 215 stories in this book to my three-year-old daughter:

Doug Mauss, ed. The Action Bible: God’s Redemptive Story.  Illustrated by Sergio Cariello. Colorado Springs, CO: Cook, 2010. 748 pp. Audiobook, 10.2-hours.

Thoughts:

  1. I was skeptical at first how a comic-book approach like this would work, but the book responsibly presents the Bible’s storyline chronologically. It’s divided into 215 short stories spanning Genesis to Revelation.
  2. It’s attention-grabbing and attention-keeping. My daughter loves it! She daily asked me, “Daddy, would you please read God’s Redemptive Story to me tonight?!” And after each story ended, she would immediately ask, “Would you read another one?!” She was riveted to the pages as we worked our way through the Bible’s storyline. I’d estimate that it took us about 15–20 hours to read together, and she enjoyed every minute of it. [Read more…] about A Good Bible-Story Book with Thousands of Pictures

The Barber Who Wanted to Pray

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Our three-year-old daughter enjoyed this new book after it arrived in the mail yesterday:

R. C. Sproul. The Barber Who Wanted to Pray. Paintings by T. Lively Fluharty. Wheaton: Crossway, 2011. 33 pp.

It’s about Martin Luther teaching his barber, Master Peter, a simple way to pray.

You can read the whole book online here (“Preview the Book”).

Related: See Carl Trueman, “A Lesson from Peter the Barber,” Themelios 34 (2009): 3–5. Trueman’s article ends with this footnote (numbering added):

Martin Luther’s treatise on prayer can be found in the following works:

  1. Martin Luther, “To Peter Beskendorf,” in Luther: Letters of Spiritual Council (ed. and trans. Theodore G. Tappert; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1955), 124–30;
  2. idem, “A Simple Way to Pray,” in Luther’s Works (ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann; trans. Carl J. Schindler; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968), 43:187–209;
  3. idem, “Luther the Confessional Theologian: A Practical Way to Pray (1535),” in Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings (ed. William R. Russell and Timothy F. Lull; 2nd ed.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 12–17.