The Jesus Book

The Jesus Book
By Stephen Elkins
Published at Thomas Nelson

About the book
The Jesus Book introduces kids to the life, teaching, wonder, and amazing love of Jesus.

Often kids know about Jesus but don't have a relationship with Him. This book offers kids "everything you need to know about God's Son" and encourages a lifelong relationship with their Lord. Divided into Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How sections, it offers clear explanations and easy understanding for young hearts. It will teach them things like who Jesus is: Jesus is God's Son, and He is also my friend. Where is Jesus? He lives in heaven, but He also lives in my heart. How does Jesus act? He acts with kindness and forgiveness, and He wants me to be like Him. The book also includes an audio CD with over an hour of songs about Jesus. This is a must-have for every child!

Who is Stephen Elkins?
Stephen Elkins is an author, musician, and record producer whose work has been nominated for the prestigious Grammy Award and is president of Wonder Workshop. Among its achievements, Wonder Kids spent 100 consecutive weeks on Billboard's Top Kid Audio Chart. Elkins also is the author of the chart-topping Read and See DVD Bible, 100 Bible Stories, 100 Bible Heroes, and the acclaimed Word & Song Bible.

My thoughts
I find the book very colorful and attractive for children. The pictures for each subject are well thought and represent quite well the scriptures and the subject. This book is a help for children to grasp completely who Jesus was and what he did when he was walking on Earth. It is divided in 7 sections which will tell the kids who Jesus is, what he did, what he taught, when it happened, where it happened, why it happened and finally how it happened.

I think it is important for children to understand all the reasons why Jesus came and how everything fell into place for him. Yes children know the bible stories but sometimes they lack the explanation of the why, how or when… This book brings it all. It even gives them some maps to visualize Israel and Jerusalem. You will also find a little timeline for them to go through. Each subject of reading concerning Jesus gives more information for the kids to understand various words, situation, and history events and so on. For example, the children will learn what a parable is, what is baptism, what is repentance, what is love i.e. an action word, what is ministry and much more. They will also be asked to discover where some cities and where some specific landscapes are located on a map.

A CD containing more than 30 songs about Jesus is also included with the book. You will find songs like Deep and Wide, What A Friend We Have in Jesus, I Will Make You Fishers of Men, Amazing Grace and many more. The songs are sung by children. The CD was a nice addition to the book since the songs relate to the main subject of the book which is Jesus.

This book is great to introduce in more details the children to Jesus and his purpose on Earth. It is written in simple words and the images are very attractive. You can reinforce the reading with the CD which gives praise to what Jesus did for us.

The Jesus Book can be find everywhere even at amazon.ca and indigo.ca