Laaren Brown and Lenny Hort - The Children's Illustrated Jewish Bible Review

DK's The Children's Illustrated Jewish Bible

Stories retold by Laaren Brown and Lenny Hort

Illustrated by Eric Thomas

Consultants: Canton Diane Dorf
and Rabbi Steven Morgen

2007 Revised Edition

CD narrator: Teresa Gallagher
$19.99 USA/ $24.99 Canada

Back when my children were much younger, we homeschooled them. A large part of our educational experiences were the visits to the area libraries and museums. We had two of the best libraries in the state (my opinion!) nearby with some of the largest children's sections I've ever seen. We practically lived in those libraries and were on first name basis with most of the staff. Some of our favorite resources were the DK illustrated books and their EyeWitness books. Small children are especially auditory, visual, and tactile in their approach to learning, so these books were a perfect fit for us. Some of the books had accompanying audio tapes, some did not. Their colorful pictures gave my children hours of pleasure as they poured over the pages in search of "treasure" to learn about. Often
the interests kindled lead to longer printed books or other illustrated books both fiction and non-fiction. I wouldn't trade those happy hours for anything! We discovered the joy of learning.

DK's Children's illustrated Jewish Bible is a  beautifully illustrated 192 page book. The stories are told from the Jewish perspective. It is filled with delightful colored pencil drawings, photographs, maps, references and quotes. It contains a CD with 17 tracks sampling 17 stories narrated by Teresa Gallagher.

The Forward and the Introduction pages address Jewish children directly, explaining in basic terms the history of the Torah and the Tanakh and what it means to be Jewish. I looked at the pages and made an educational guess that the reading level for children who could read this book independently would be about third and fourth grade. However, advanced second graders may be able to read this book as well. The way it is illustrated and arranged makes it an appealing book even for upper elementary children and older young people, especially as a reference text. Of course, the stories are also designed to be read aloud to smaller children. So the age range for this book is a large one.

Most of the stories are covered in two pages with the reference at the top of the pages in both Hebrew and English. Photographs detail archaeological artifacts, modern scenery of the historical places, people, plants and foods, and accoutrements. The stories begin with Genesis and continue to Psalms and the books of poetry.

In the back of the book are appendices: Who's Who in the Bible Stories, Places in the Bible Stories, and the Index. I highly recommend this book for anyone with children interested in the Judeo-Christian history and heritage. It is a storybook for young children and would be a good beginning reference book.