Most of All, Jesus Loves You!

Debby Anderson (Illustrator). Crossway Books 2004, Hardcover, 24 pages, $7.16

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

This fun toddler book recounts a simple family ritual in which a parent reminds their young child of all the people in their life who love them, ending with “Most of all, Jesus loves you!”  It is well written with pleasant repetition, with a solid message that young children will easily understand.  It could make a good complement to Guess How Much I Love You, which expands on a similar theme without taking the final step between parental love and God’s love.

Its cheery illustrations are adequate to demonstrate the book’s message, but are fairly unimpressive.  This could be a classic if it were gorgeously illustrated.

The Jesus Storybook Bible

Jago (Illustrator). ZonderKidz 2007, Hardcover, 352 pages, $9.50

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

In the overwhelming abundance of Children’s Bibles, The Jesus Storybook Bible stands out in its Christ-centeredness and above-average writing.  As Mark Tubbs says in his detailed review at Discerning Reader, “Every story does indeed whisper the person and work of Jesus Christ. The message of man’s sinfulness, his inability to obey, and God’s enduring grace bleeds through every page.”

In Lloyd-Jones’ attempts to contextualize the stories for young children she does take some liberties, but these usually don’t go too far.  For example, when the hungry 5000 are preparing to be fed, the disciples realize that “they couldn’t go and buy themselves a burger and fries to go because, of course, they were in the middle of nowhere with no shops or restaurants. (Besides, that kind of food wasn’t invented yet)”.

Overall the story selection is good, the presentation is interesting and faithful to the original Scripture, and the illustrations are cheery, if not artistically amazing.  Each chapter carefully and wonderfully makes explicit how it points toward Jesus’ work on our behalf.  This is well worth reading with children in preparation for their experience of the real Scripture.

Quena and Christopher (age 4), August 2009