Adam and Eve: A Story About Making Right Choices (I Can Read The Bible)

 Adam and Eve: A Story About Making Right Choices
I Can Read the Bible
No author or illustrator listed. Published by Candy Cane Press
Copyright 2005 by Smart Kids Publishing, Inc.
Format: Board book and DVD
Status: updated version available on amazon or ebay

Conclusion: Fix it with a label maker

After years or not finding any Adam and Eve Bible stories at the thrift stores, I finally bought one on ebay.  It was fine for my older daughter, but it was too advance for me to read it to my younger son.  You can imagine how excited I was when I finally found this I Can Read version.  It's colorful and exciting enough to keep my son's attention.  However, since I bought it at a thrift store, it did not come with the original DVD that it claims to have.  Since I have never seen it, I cannot give my opinion of it.  The back of the book states that it contains an animated version with highlighted words for reading along, it allows the child to click on difficult words to hear them pronounced, and also includes a game and sing-along activity.  But since I don't have access to the DVD, the rest of the review is about the book.

I'll start off by saying that this book has problems.  By itself, we decided that it was not accurate enough to be kept in our Bible story library, which was so disappointing because I really wanted to keep this book around. However, since we were rather desperate for an Adam and Eve story we could read to my 3 year old and since everyone liked this one, we decided to "fix" it instead of getting rid of it.  This was the first time we ever changed the words of our Bible stories to make them more accurate, but it wasn't the last time.

The Good Points:

• It's short enough to read to younger children.
• It has fun, colorful illustrations. 
• The characters have dialogue using word bubbles, like in a comic book.
• The illustrations add details that are left out of the text to keep it short enough for younger children.  This allows you to point them out if the child wants more information.  One example is that when Adam and Eve leave the garden they are wearing furs instead of fig leaves. The story itself doesn't mention why, but you can point it out them, or answer their questions if they notice it.

The Discrepancies:

• In this book, it says that God told Adam and Eve that they could not eat the fruit. In the Bible, God only told Adam. Eve had not been created yet.  
• God's dialogue in this story reads "If you eat from this tree, you will have to leave the Garden."  In the Bible God never says anything about leaving, he says that they will die.  Leaving the Garden also happens as a result, but it is never mentioned in advance.  This part is what we changed.  We used a label maker and changed the words to read "If you eat from this tree, you will surely die!"  We had to change that phrase in 3 different places, all in the dialogue boxes.
• It doesn't mention what happens to the snake.
• The book doesn't mention most of the punishments the occur after Adam and Eve sin. It says that they had to leave the garden and that from that day onward they had to work for their food.  It does not mention death.  You could easily fix that by adding another label at the end that says "and when they grow old they die." 

So is this book worth keeping in your library?  Only if you are willing to fix the mistakes.  Most of the book is accurate, but I think the punishment of death is too important to ignore.  However, with a label maker, or some white-out, you can turn this book into a fun, yet accurate version of Adam and Eve that you can read with even young children.  The book recommends it for Ages 3-8.  I believe I even started reading it with my son at age 2.