Bible Stories & Prayers by Mike Nawrocki and Amy Parker

This is a fully illustrated Bible storybook with 50 stories: 25 Old Testament, 25 New Testament. It is written for children ages 4-8. After each story is a short prayer to pray with the child.

This Bible storybook is co-authored by Veggie Tales co-creator, Mike Nawrocki. The specific goal for this story Bible is to “speak directly to [children] and to tell God’s story in a way that reveals His love for each of them.” Each story is very brief and would take no more than 5 minutes to read. The illustrations are very cartoony and not a personal favorite of mine.

The text itself retells many stories without adding very much non-biblical fictionalization, however, it’s what’s missing that’s more concerning. The story of the Fall is titled, “Adam and Eve Mess Up.” This is a gross understatement. While the prayer following this story does use the word “sins,” there really isn’t an explanation of the Gospel. “Sin” isn’t used for the first time within a story until The Last Supper. That’s a large problem in my eyes. Children need to understand the sin in the Old Testament to understand why Christ needed to pay for it with His life. Here are the closest we get to a Gospel presenation:

“Dear God, Thank you for loving us so much that You sent Your Son, Jesus, to die for us so that we can live with You in heaven forever. Amen.”
“Thank you for sending us Your Son, Jesus! We praise You because He defeated death! Thank You for forgiving our sins and welcoming us into Your family. Thank You that we are Your children. Amen.”
“They knew how much [Jesus] loved everyone and wanted them to turn from the wrong things they had done and be forgiven so that they could be with Him forever in heaven. This is the good news that Jesus wanted His disciples to share.”

As shown in some of the text above, this is written from the perspective that your child is already a believer, which I find to be problematic.

At the end, there is also a note to the children where the Gospel is shared, and while I greatly appreciate this, I disagree with the words chosen:

“When we realize that we’ve done wrong, we need to turn away from those sins and turn toward Jesus and His love instead. If you believe this is true and haven’t already chosen to accept that gift of forgiveness, you can do it now by reading scriptures like Romans 9:9-10 and Acts 16:30-34 with your parents and by praying this simple prayer…[Sinner’s Prayer included]…If you’ve said that prayer (or one like it), you have accepted the gift of salvation. You have been saved by Jesus. You can live your life for Him on earth and spend eternity with Him in heaven…”

As a former false convert, I believed I was saved because I had said the Sinner’s Prayer many times as a child. I pointed back to those events to say I was saved instead of what Scripture says, “Repent and believe.” Ongoing verbs not passed tense.

For these reasons, this is not a story Bible I would recommend.