My First Bible Board Book

My 16 month old son LOVES this book. This is not a "story" book, as some other reviewers have noted, but has pictures of baby Jesus, Mary & Joseph, the Wise Men, etc. What I love is that it also has historical accuracy in that it shows pictures of the houses people lived in in biblical times, the plants that grew then, the animals, the cooking implements they used in Jesus' time, etc. Extremely educational for a baby book. (OK, I could have lived without the page on Biblical Weapons - weapons in a baby book? Come on. We just skip that page.) It may be hard to believe that a baby would be interested in these things, but trust me, this is the first book he reaches for every time!! I highly recommend this book and the rest of the DK Board Book series. They are all good.

This is a really neat little book in the "First Book" series. This is not a storybook; it's a collection of pictures of things that are mentioned, or have a context, in ancient Israel, from pictures of shepherds (kids dressed up like a Christmas pageant) to plants (Judas trees, papyrus, etc.), animals, and items from daily ancient life. It's arranged like most of the books in the "First Book" series, in a way which will help kids' mental development by providing categories of objects. When I was a young kid, reading my first book of bible stories, I was often puzzled. What exactly was a "bullrush"? What was a locust? What was unleavened bread? I'd never seen any of these things, so it was difficult to figure out what they were supposed to be (there are no footnotes in the bible.) The illustrations in my favorite book of kids' bible stories were also oddly smoothed and seemed disconnected from the text, as if they were stills from a Hollywood sword-and-sandal movie or, which had the unfortunate effect of making the words seem just like any other story, not grounded in history. This book has a beautifully-photographed sampling of some of the objects, people, animals, and other stuff of daily life that might answer at least a few of these conundrums. This is not, to be sure, a visual dictionary so much as a sampler. But because of the biblical theme, it's in many ways more interesting than most similar books, because it shows things that may be more out of children's visual experience. In this sense, it's a nice way to broaden the visual vocabulary. We've found it to be a lot of fun. There is a school of thought that, because very young children don't develop moral senses of right and wrong in conduct and don't understand metaphor until they become older, that more literal religious instruction might be better left for those years. Parents who are ardently concerned their infant receive bible education at the earliest age won't find it in this book, but those who want to provide a little bit of enrichment that might make the learning process go a little bit easier later should find this a nice addition to a first-reader library for infants to tots. Illustrated primers -- especially biblically-themed ones -- were among the first types of books written specifically for children, going back to the early 19th century, and it's interesting to think of this as a revival of that kind of basic stepping stone.

This series of board books are fantastic.I started collecting these for my daughter after she was given one at 6 months and this is what we started to read to her every night. She woud sit and demand it to be read over and over and over again. The board pages and are easy for baby and toddler to turn and the pictures (real photography not illustrations) are wonderful.The bible one has simple pictures to explain the people, animals and food of the bible stories. Also great just to help your toddler expand their vocabularly. If your looking for a great picture book to share with your baby this is the one (and the series of books) to buy. You can never have too many books to read with your children.

I purchased this book for my 3 year old nephew. He absolutelyloves it. It is very entertaining with energetic pictures and bright,festive colors. He was interested in every page, which told a different story. It is a wonderful way to introduce religion early in life. END