Timothy Whale's Rainbow

I have a big beef with the way the story of Noah and the flood is typically covered in children's materials. I have had people tell me that they never realized until they were reading their Bibles as adults why God had flooded the earth - this story is almost always focused on the cuddly animals on a cute cartoon boat! If you want to teach it in a Biblically accurate manner, though, it gets much trickier to not make this an utterly terrifying story to children. God is wiping out all of humanity and all of the animals because of the extent of mankind's wickedness. Only a handful are saved in order to repopulate the earth. Cheery! Well, if I were wearing a hat, I would take it off in honor of Darrell Wiskur's wonderful children's book entitled Timothy Whale's Rainbow. Wiskur has once again outdone himself with the quality, beauty, and detail in the illustrations of this book. Even better, though, is the wonderful, accurate, and unique way he approaches the account of the worldwide flood and Noah's ark. Timothy Whale (who apparently has a Scottish accent, making this a bit more challenging for me to read - "aye" and "right before me very eyes" sounds ridiculous if I read it in my normal midwesternese!) notices that when he blows his spout at the surface of the ocean on sunny days, the spray makes a rainbow. He wonders why that would be and asks his grandfather, who explains to him the account of Noah and the great flood. The text and illustrations concentrate more on Noah building the ark in obedience to God and the people mocking than on the animals going on board, which is refreshing. There is actually only one page in the book that focuses entirely on the animals - find another kid's book about the flood like that, I dare you (I've tried)! The illustrations of the ark are Biblically accurate, and Wiskur honestly (but age-appropriately) deals with the fact that the people were afraid and were destroyed because of their wickedness and rebellion against God. After Timothy Whale's grandfather has explained the flood account and the rainbow as God's sign to Noah, the story ends with Timothy saying, "I give up me spray, we look through the mist, those beautiful colors just prove God exists!" Lovely, lovely book - the best I've seen about the flood! As an added bonus, the last two pages include information about all different kinds of whales and a glossary of terms and important aspects of the Biblical flood account.

- Great fictional story with Biblical truths.- The illustrations were beautiful.- Our daughter loved the glossary and different whale pictures in the back.- We're looking forward to many more children books by Mr. Wiskur.