A nostalgic collection of more than 120 Bible stories and art taken from Taylor's Bible Story Book and The Living Bible Story Book. Not only does Classic Bible Storybook present the truths of the Bible in language that is understandable to kids, it will also generate fond memories for parents and grandparents who remember the popular Hook art and the stories written by Ken Taylor. The stories sound like they are being told by a kind grandfather to his grandchildren. Each story has 3 or 4 comprehension questions to help children's understanding of Biblical concepts. Reading/hearing these stories will help young ones love stories of the Bible and may help adults fall in love again with God's Word.
About the author: Kenneth N. Taylor is best known as the translator of The Living Bible and founder of Tyndale House Publishers, but his first renown was as a writer of children's books. Dr. Taylor and his wife Margaret raised 10 children, and his early books were written for use in the family's daily devotions. The manuscripts were ready for publication only when they passed the scrutiny of those ten critics. Dr. Taylor's books have been read to three generations around the world and have shaped the faith of many believers. All of his work pointed to his mission: to help all people understand the Word of God and experience its power at work in their lives. Dr. Taylor believed that it was important for the illustrations in his books to make the words come to life. Just as the words were easy for children to understand, so were the illustrations. He especially appreciated Richard and Frances Hook for their realistic, accurate portrayal of biblical scenes along with sweet pictures of children. Their illustrations, along with Dr. Taylor's stories, can easily form the basis for many lively family discussions about the Bible. Tyndale House Publishers
STORY 1
God Makes a Beautiful World
GENESIS 1-2; 3:20
Long, long ago-before anyone can remember-God made the world. At first it was lonely and dark.
Then God made the light. He said, "Let there be light," and light came. God was pleased with it. He called the light "day." And he called the darkness "night." God did these things on the first day of Creation.
Then God made the space above the earth. He called it "sky." God did this on the second day of Creation.
Next God said that the waters covering the earth should become oceans and lakes, and dry land should appear. God also made grass grow, and bushes and trees. All this was on the third day of Creation.
On the fourth day God let the sun shine in the daytime, and the moon and stars at night.
On the fifth day God made large sea animals and little fish. And he made birds, like ducks and geese, to fly over the water and swim in it. He made other birds, like eagles, robins, pigeons, and wrens, to fly over the land and live in the woods and fields.
On the sixth day of Creation God made animals that walk on land. He made wild elephants, lions, tigers, and bears. He made tame rabbits, horses, cows, and sheep. And he made little insects, such as ants and bees.
Then God made someone very special. He took some dust from the ground and formed it into a man's body. God gave life to the body, and the man began to breathe. God named the man Adam.
The Lord God planted the beautiful Garden of Eden as a home for Adam. In it God planted trees full of delicious fruit. God told Adam he could eat any fruit except the fruit from one tree. That was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If Adam obeyed God, he could live forever. But if Adam took even one bite from that tree's fruit, God said he would die someday.
Adam was lonely, for he was the only person in all the world. So God decided to make another person who would live with Adam and help him. God put Adam to sleep. Then God took one of Adam's ribs and made a woman from it. When God brought the woman to Adam, she became his wife. And Adam named her Eve.
God looked at all he had made in six days, and he was very pleased.
On the seventh day, God rested. It was a quiet day, different from all the others-a holy day of rest.
Look at the picture on page 2 and name some things that God created.
How did God make Adam?
What did God tell Adam he could do?
What did Adam need to do so he could live forever?
How did God make Eve?
STORY 2
The World's Saddest Day
GENESIS 3; ROMANS 5:12-16
Satan is a wicked spirit. He tries to make people do things that are wrong. He came to Eve in the Garden of Eden. He was in the shape of a serpent.
Satan asked Eve, "Did God really tell you not to eat the fruit of any of the trees in the Garden?"
"We may eat any of it except from one tree," she replied. "We are not to eat the fruit of the tree in the middle of the Garden. God said that if we do, we will start growing old and die."
"That's not true!" Satan told her. "It won't hurt you at all! Really, it's good and will make you wise."
Eve should have gone away and should not have listened to Satan. But instead, she went over and looked at the tree. The fruit looked good! So she ate some fruit. She gave some to Adam, and he ate it too. Then they were afraid of God and tried to hide.
God was angry. He told the serpent, "You will have to crawl in the dust all your life."
God told the woman, "You will have pain when your children are born."
God told Adam, "You will have to work hard to get food to eat. And someday you will die. Your body will become dust again."
But God still loved Adam and Eve. So he made clothes for them before he sent them out of the beautiful garden. He also promised to send a Savior. That Savior was God's Son, Jesus, who came years later to die for everyone's sins. (Perhaps you already know that after Jesus died, he came back to life. Now he lives in heaven with God the Father.)
All of us do bad things. We sin, just like Adam and Eve did. But God forgives us if we ask him to, because Jesus died to take away our sins.
Did Adam and eve obey God or Satan?
How did God punish Adam and eve?
When God was angry, how did he still show his love?
When we do bad things, what can we ask God to do?
STORY 3
The First Family Fight
GENESIS 4:1-16
After God sent Adam and Eve out of the Garden, he gave them two sons. Cain became a farmer, planting crops. Abel was a shepherd with a flock of sheep.
The two brothers both sinned-they did things that were wrong. But Abel pleased God. So we know he was sorry about his sins. One day Abel offered his best lamb as a gift to God. He put the lamb on an altar made of stones. This gift was called a sacrifice. By giving God his best lamb, Abel showed God that he loved him.
God was pleased that Abel worshiped him like this.
One day God would send his Son, Jesus, into the world. Jesus would become a very special kind of sacrifice. He would die to save us from having to take the blame for our sins. Then he would come back to life.
Abel's brother, Cain, did not please God. He did not turn from his sins. The offering he brought was from his garden, but he did not bring the best things from his garden.
When Cain learned that God had accepted Abel's sacrifice but not his, he was angry with God. But God said that if Cain would worship him in the right way, he would accept Cain's gift.
Cain, who was still angry with God, took his anger out on Abel. One day in a field, Cain killed Abel.
God called to Cain, "Where is Abel, your brother?"
"How should I know?" Cain answered. "Am I supposed to look after my brother?"
But God had seen what Cain had done. So God said Cain would always have to wander from place to place. He would have to keep looking for places where crops would grow. Cain was afraid that people would try to hurt him. But God still loved Cain and said he would never let that happen.
What gift did Abel give God?
What did Cain offer to God?
Before he would accept Cain's gift, what did God want Cain to do?
What terrible thing is Cain getting ready to do in the picture on page 7?
Afterward, what did God say would happen to Cain? What would not happen?
STORY 4
A Long, Long Time to Live
GENESIS 5
Cain and Abel's father and mother, Adam and Eve, lived for many years after the fight between their first two sons. When Adam was 930 years old, he died. His body became dust again. That's what God had said would happen because Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden.
Before Adam and Eve died, they had many children. The children grew up and had children too. Then those children grew up and had children, until there were many, many people in the world.
One of those people was Enoch. He walked with God. That means he loved God and thought about God all the time. It was as if he and God walked together like friends. Enoch listened to what God said and always tried to please and obey him. When Enoch was 365 years old, God did a wonderful thing for him. God took Enoch right up to heaven! So he didn't die like other men. God just took Enoch away to live with him.
Enoch had a son named Methuselah, who lived to be 969 years old. Methuselah is known as the oldest man who ever lived.
What special thing happened to Enoch?
Who was the oldest man who ever lived?
How old was he when he died?
STORY 5
Noah Is Safe in a Boat
GENESIS 6:1-9:17
As the years went by, the world became very wicked. People didn't even try to obey God. So God said he would send a flood to drown all living things.
But one good man named Noah loved God and always wanted to please him. God loved Noah too, and told him about the flood so he could get ready for it.
God told Noah, "I want you to build a huge boat." God said to make it as high as a three-story house, with many large rooms. It was to have a long window all around it and a big door on the side.
It took Noah more than one hundred years to build the boat. But as you know, at that time people lived much longer than they do now.
When the boat was finished, God told Noah to bring his wife, his three sons, and each son's wife into the boat. God also said to bring fathers and mothers for each kind of bird, animal, and insect. God said that in one week he would send a rain that would last forty days and forty nights. A flood would come, and everyone outside the boat would be drowned.
When all were safely inside, God closed the door.
Seven days later it began to rain. The rain poured down for forty days and forty nights, just as God had said it would. The creeks, the rivers, and the great oceans all began to rise, and water covered the land. Higher and higher the water rose, with the boat floating on it.
What about the people who wouldn't obey God? Now it was too late for them to get into the boat.
But God took care of Noah and all those who were with him. Finally the rain stopped, and the water began to go down again.
After Noah had been in the boat for 150 days-almost half a year-the boat rested on top of Mount Ararat. Two and a half months later, the flood had gone down even more.
Finally the ground was dry. So God told Noah and his family to come out of the boat. He said to let out all the animals and insects and birds, too.
Then Noah built an altar. He gave animals and birds to the Lord God to thank God for saving him and his family from the Flood.
God promised that he would never send another flood to drown all living things. As proof, he gave Noah a sign-a beautiful rainbow in the sky. Whenever he saw it, Noah would remember God's promise not to send a flood like that again. When we see a rainbow, we can remember God's promise too.
Why did God send the Flood?
What people did Noah bring onto the boat?
What else did Noah bring onto the boat?
How long did it rain?
What can you think about when you see a rainbow?
(Continues...)
Excerpted from CLASSIC BIBLE STORYBOOK by KENNETH N. TAYLOR Copyright © 2009 by Tyndale House Foundation. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Recently I was offered the opportunity to review a new book by Kenneth Taylor called Classic Bible Storybook. Since I have children who range in age from 2 to 18, I am always looking for additional resources to use with our in-home Bible study. Many of you know Kenneth Taylor's name from his Bible Story Book and The Living Bible. He has pleased audiences for three generations now with his writing, and this book is an excellent addition to his other works.
It was illustrated by Richard and Frances Hook. The pictures throughout this book are truly a work of art. From the moment that I opened the package, I was transported back to my memories of the art work in my first Children's Living Bible. I spent many hours of my childhood looking at those pictures.
In reading through this book, I can tell the care Mr. Taylor has taken with the details of Scripture, and he has included a few questions at the end of each story to give you a springboard for discussion. My children seem to remember Bible stories when they have had time to think and discuss the stories. And they also enjoyed retelling the stories back to me. The stories in this book are broken down into small sections, so it is easy to read and get to the meat of each story in a brief amount of time. That is an important thing for young children, especially if you have 5 boys.
I enjoyed sharing this book with my children, and I am sure that it will become a classic book that we will have on our family bookshelf for many years to come.
The Classic Bible Story Book contains 120 stories from the Bible. It's written for children ages 4 - 8 but I honestly think that older children would enjoy this book too. My 9 year old son and my almost 12 year old daughter both had the opportunity to read from the book too and they both told me that it was a good book and that they liked the stories. My daughter, who is an excellent reader and reads books like poems from Emily Dickinson and books that are upwards of 400-500 pages, enjoyed the book. That is why I think that even older children and 'tweens would enjoy this book as much as the 4-8 crowd.
The first thing that really stands out in this book is the beautiful artwork. The artwork is very realistic looking and not "cute" like in other children's books. To me it's more like ART then just illustrations. It also reminds me very much of a Bible or Bible story book that I had as a child. For the life of me I can't remember the book, but some of the images inside the Classic Bible Story Book very much remind me of something I read growing up (so it would have to be 30+ years ago).
Another thing that really makes the artwork and the story "pop" is that pages they are printed on. The pages resemble old paper with worn and darkened edges. When you are reading the book you feel like you have your hands on an antique book.
The stories are beautifully written. Each story is from the bible and are only about a page or two in length so you can easily read a couple of different stories at night before bed or your children can read a few on their own. I know that the Bible isn't necessarily written for young children. Some of the language is hard for them to understand the meaning behind it. With the Classic Bible Story Book the stories are written in a way to make them very easy to understand with no big or unusual words outside of words children already know.
Some of the stories covered in this book include Adam & Eve, Noah, Joseph, Jericho, the Golden Calf, Jonah and the Last Supper, just to name a few. The stories within the pages of this book come from both the old and new testaments and appear to go in chronological order.
A great feature about this book is that at the end of each story there are a few questions that you can ask your child to make sure they fully understood what was just read. They are not hard questions at all and any child could easily answer them by reading (or being read) the story.
CarrieK
Posted February 26, 2009
The kids and I have been enjoying the stories from this book for the past three weeks. I love that the stories aren't so long that my two squirmiest become restless, but are long enough to communicate a full story without cutting any corners. The text is scripturally accurate, but also keeps in mind the age of the intended audience. For instance, the story of David and Goliath stops with Goliath falling to the ground, and skips the part about David cuttting his head off.
Another wonderful thing about this book is the illustrations - they are beautifully done, and remind me of the Bible storybooks I grew up with. The questions at the end of each chapter are designed to make sure that your children have understood the story, and are a good jumping-off point for deeper discussions about how the story relates to us today and how we live out our faith. My kids are ages 12, 10, 9, and 7 - and all four of them are enjoying the time we spend with this book.
Highly recommended.
Overview
A nostalgic collection of more than 120 Bible stories and art taken from Taylor's Bible Story Book and The Living Bible Story Book. Not only does Classic Bible Storybook present the truths of the Bible in language that is understandable to kids, it will also generate fond memories for parents and grandparents who remember the popular Hook art and the stories written by Ken Taylor. The stories sound like they are being told by a kind grandfather to his grandchildren. Each story has 3 or 4 comprehension questions ...