Monday, January 8, 2018

The Prayer Bible For Children - A Review






The Prayer Bible For Children




A Review


In spite of many positive reviews, I found this children’s Bible to be lacking. 

Using the description provided by Bible Gateway, the ICB is best suited for “a barely literate society because of its economy of words, acrostic literary form, and poetic parallelism.” Though the text is aimed at the third-grade reader, the book as a whole is not. Having said that, this version is also not presented in a manner that will be appealing to children. The chosen font is too small for most young readers. The illustrated pages use only gold and dark blue - with black text, possibly providing more appeal for an adult audience than for the children the title suggests the book is targetting. 

The various helps included might be more suitable for the middle school or junior high reader, but this reviewer doubts that typical middle schooler or junior high students would want to be carrying a “Children’s Bible”. Also attached as a separate booklet is a 64 page (lined) “Prayer Journal” for the child to record their own prayers. No suggestions are available for the use of this booklet and the child using this Bible will need assistance from a parent or Sunday School teacher in order to make use of it. 

My rating for this Bible is not that I do not think it has value, but because I question the value of this edition for a child. If an adult wants to say, “I gave my child a Bible as a gift,” this may be a suitable gift. But that would be more satisfying to the adult than to the child. There are more suitable children’s Bibles available. 

If the word “Children” were removed from the title, this book would be better suited for an audience working with a group where English is considered a second language. An adult ESL student would be able to overlook the title and be able to accept the format as appropriate for their age and educational status. 
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This review is based on a copy provided by the publisher for the purpose of creating this review. The opinions are mine alone. 

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