The Tower of Babel (Little Children's Bible Books)

 The Tower of Babel
Little Children's Bible Books
Retold by Anne de Graaf
Illustrated by Jose Perez Montero
Copyright 1998
Format: Hardcover
Status: Not currently being printed, but numerous pre-owned copies are available on ebay
Conclusion: Keep



This book is from a set of books called Little Children's Bible Books.  I see that there are 22 stories available, but this is the only one we own.  It has a different, yet interesting format that I haven't seen for other Bible stories.  The top of the pages tells the story, while the bottom of the pages has fun commentary from an animal. In this case, it's an ant.  According to the notes in the back of the book, the commentary is supposed to include fun actions and things to do for little children. It is suppose to make the book come alive for them.  This one only has a few activities, most of them are just comments from the ant.

For this particular book, I skip most of the commentary.  I could see how it would be useful as a one time read aloud, like for a Sunday school class, but as a bedtime story in the regular rotation, I'm not sure the repeated actions are very helpful.  The story reads smoother without stopping to read the ant's comments.

The Good Points:

  • The story is Biblically accurate.
  • The books starts with stimulating prior knowledge. It asks children if they know words in other languages then gives a few examples of how to say hello in different languages. Then the book ends with saying goodbye in those same langages.
  • The illustrations are fun and comical. They do a great job of telling the story, even without the words. I particularly love the image to show how proud the people had become. They even have pet peacocks!
  • The center of the book has a very large fold out of the tower of Babel. Both of my kids have loved it!
  • This is my son's favorite Bible book at the moment.  He asks me to read it nearly every night. So obviously it does something right to catch children's interest.
The Discrepancies:
  • This is not necessarily a discrepancy, but I do think it need to be mentioned. The Bible never states why the tower of Babel displeases God.  This storybook states that God knew he must stop the people or "they would think they were gods."  The ant's commentary says that they were proud.  However, Biblical scholars tend to agree that the reason God disliked the tower is because the people were using it to prove that they didn't need God anymore, and that they were becoming proud. So the book agrees with Biblical scholar's interpretations.  I don't believe this is a problem, but it does need to be pointed out that it add something that the Bible doesn't say outright.  I like the fact that this story explicitly states why the tower was a problem, though. It makes it easier for children to understand God's actions.
  • The illustrations show modern cranes working on the tower.
That is it. I cannot find any other problems with this book, and I'm not even sure I would consider those to be problems. One is still Biblically accurate according to scholars, and the other is simply an artistic decision to use something that children would recognize.

Is this book a keeper?  You bet! It's very accurate and my son would be terribly sad if I gave his favorite Bible storybook away.  The book says it is recommended for ages 3-6.






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