Jonah (The Bible for Little People)

 Jonah
The Bible for Little People
Text by Christine Deverell
Illustrated by Richard Deverell, James Deverell, and Chris King.
Copyright 2002
Format: Boardbook
Status: Not currently being published, a few preowned copies available on ebay.
Conclusion: Keep



    This is a very short, simplified, version of Jonah meant for very young children. There is nothing inherently wrong with this book, it just skips a lot of the details and gives you a very condensed version of the story. On the other hand, that is to be expected from books meant for such young children. Toddlers, after all, only have a limited attention span and are still learning most of life's concepts.  

The Good parts:

  • The book itself is rugged and well made.  It flips up instead of side-to-side like most books, so kids think that's fun.
  • Pictures are colorful and bright.
  • It says that Jonah got on a ship going to Spain instead of Tarshish. I like this because it's possible a child might have heard of Spain, which is where Tarshish would be located today.
  • It mentions that the storm stopped as soon as Jonah was in the water (which is an important detail that is skipped in at least one other Jonah story).
  • The book uses simple language that young children can understand.
  • It repeats the concept of being "sorry", a phrase that a young child has probably heard. Inside the whale Jonah was sorry. At the end of the book, the people of Nineveh were sorry.
The Discrepencies:
  • The book skips a lot of details.
  • It never mentions how long Jonah was inside the fish. This detail seems like it should have been important (and simple) enough to include. I'm not sure why it was skipped.
  • The end of Jonah's story, where he goes outside of the city to watch God destroy it, then when he gets mad about God destroying the plant, is missing entirely.
In conclusion: we chose to keep this book in our library despite its missing details. This is an acceptable version of Jonah for very young children.  I recommend it for ages 0-3.



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