Book Review: Read and Share Toddler Bible

This is my first book review for Thomas Nelson Publishers! Being a preschool teacher, I decided to read and review the Read and Share Toddler Bible. The stories are retold by Gwen Ellis, with illustrations by Steve Smallman.

I very much enjoyed this collection of Bible stories for toddlers, and I plan to use it sometimes in my classroom. Naturally, the book is divided between stories of the Old Testament and the New Testament. The stories are very basic and focus on lessons, such as obedience for example, rather than giving a lot of details that would be difficult for a young child to understand.

Simplistic words are used that toddlers would know, such as the word "owies" in one of the stories about David. There is also good a use of action type words. For example, "God made wiggly fishes. Splish! Splash!"

At the beginning of each story, the Bible verse that the story came from is listed. What I love about this book is that at the end of each story there is a suggestion for interactive learning for parents to do with their child. Sometimes it suggests a way to act out the story, other times it is an easy craft project to do together, and, of course, there are suggestions of how to help your child pray about something.

The illustrations are very nice. They're colorful but not too busy.

Along with this book, you get a DVD that shares most of the Bible stories portrayed in the book! The voices and background music are very calming, and the pictures must have been done by the illustrator of the book. There are also coloring pages that can be accessed on your computer. I must admit that I couldn't figure out how to do this on my computer, but it may have been just me.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book and DVD for any 2-year-old you may know!