The Life of Corrie Ten Boom

If you've ever seen the Great Illustrated Classics and their counterpart, the Mini Illustrated Classics (both by Baronet Publishers), or maybe the Big Little Books, this book is done in the format of the Mini Illustrated Classics and softcover Big Little Books - about 5 1/2 inches tall and 218 pages of story and illustrations, with bibliography and a single-page glossary at the back. It even has a picture on every other page, done very much in the style of the artwork in the Illustrated Classics series. It's written at about a 5th grade reading level - not necessarily for struggling readers, but the illustrations should appeal to reluctant readers. The story is the inspiring biography of Corrie ten Boom, whose family hid fugitive Jews in a secret hiding place in their home in Holland, until they were found out by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp. Throughout the book, Corrie and her family find ways to witness to others and lead many to Christ, even in the worst conditions of a Nazi death camp. The ten Booms certainly lived their faith under unimaginably horrible conditions, an example we modern day Christians need to see in this age of lukewarm apathy. I first discovered this story in a comic book version of Corrie ten Boom's THE HIDING PLACE as a teenager, and I later saw the movie when it came to late-night TV (we weren't allowed to go to the theater, even for a wonderful Christian movie like that!), so I was quick to purchase this illustrated version when I saw it several years ago. The book seems a bit preachy at times, though it is part of the "Young Reader's Christian Library" series - I'm sure that's also partly because I am more used to secular children's books from my fourth grade classroom. However, I'm making a homemade Accelerated Reader quiz on the book, which I will load onto our AR program at school, and the book will join the hundreds of other AR books on my classroom bookcases. I had one of my students mentioning the other day that her father doesn't like her reading most fantasy books - magic, talking animals, etc. Upon questioning later, she said she used to attend a Baptist school, which I said is my denomination too. Anyway, I'm making more of an effort these days to offer more books with a Christian theme or elements - books from the Christy fiction series by C. Archer, the Young Mandie series by Lois Gladys Leppard, and the Cooper Kids series by Frank Peretti are all being added to my classroom collection, as well as the Great Illustrated Classic, STORIES FROM THE BIBLE. If most classrooms have Harry Potter on their shelves (which I love, but which is certainly controversial and seen by some as anti-Christian), then I don't see any reason that books with a Christian message shouldn't also be offered as a choice to those students who want to read them.

An Important story that our children need to hear! Told in a way that makes it hard to put down. And look at that price