Back-of-the-book blurb: More than 50 stories from the Old and New Testaments come to vivid life, ready to captivate readers and [...]]]> The Random House Book of Bible Stories retold by Mary Pope Osborne and Natalie Pope Boyce; illustrated by Michael Welply
Reading level: Ages 9-12
Hardcover: 176 pages
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers (September 22, 2009)
ISBN-13: 978-0375822810

Back-of-the-book blurb: More than 50 stories from the Old and New Testaments come to vivid life, ready to captivate readers and listeners of all ages. Each story is crafted for reading aloud, so the whole family can share the experience.

She is Too Fond of Books’ review: I haven’t yet posted one of those “25 Things About Me” (or 50, or 75 … how many can you stand?!), but I think you could cobble together an impressive dossier by combing my blog.  Here’s one fact you might not know … I teach Sunday School … to Kindergartners.  Talk about pressure!  It’s tough enough to instill a sense of faith in my own children; to teach and lead a group of 5-year-olds is a big responsibility, really!

It has been a pleasure to have this book at Sunday School and at home this fall.  We used it in church during our lesson on “The Parting of the Red Sea.”  After telling the story verbally, then making props and acting it out (I wish I had pictures to post – stellar cotton ball clouds and construction paper columns of fire; the Red Sea was made of two blue tablecloths that parted easily – and closed before the Egyptian army could cross), we settled in to a quiet circle time so I could read the story from The Random House Book of Bible Stories.

Reading from the book was a nice way to reinforce the lesson.  Like all the “retellings” in this volume, it is short, just two pages.  One full-page illustrations of the Israelites crossing the parted Sea spills over onto a second page.  The realistic watercolor shows the size and power of the Sea in relation to the 600,000 people.  I intentionally held off reading until the end of the lesson, so the children would first have to opportunity to conjure up their own imagined images.

Our Red Sea story is a retelling of Genesis 1-2; the text is easy to understand for even this young age group.  I did need to define a few words that were an integral part of the story; aside from names and places, pillar and chariot stand out.

At home, we call this simply “the book of Bible Stories.“   My 7-year-old (who is a voracious reader and enjoys making connections between her world and the books she reads), leafs through it each week to see if the lesson from her second-grade Sunday School class is retold here.  The vocabulary and font size are appropriate for her to read alone, but I like to sit and listen to her read it aloud.  The publisher cites the reading level at 9-12, but I would place it lower, both for read-aloud and read-alone.

The Random House Book of Bible Stories is a comprehensive collection of all the “biggies” – those impactful stories from the Old and New Testaments that we learn as children.  The length of each story, ease of retelling, and vivid realistic illustrations combine to make this an appealing collection for home or church school.

About the authors: Mary Pope Osborne is the author of the bestselling Magic Tree House series.  Co-author Natalie Pope Boyce is also co-author of the non-fiction Magic Treehouse Research Guides.  Michael Welply has illustrated over seventy books in Europe and the United States.

FTC disclosure: review copy provided by the publisher.