The Little Girl's Home: The Story of Jairus's Daughter (A Building Book)

 The Little Girl's Home
The Story of Jairus' Daughter
A Building Book
No author or illustrator listed
Copyright: 1988
Format: board book
Status: I have no idea where you could find this book. I can't find it on Amazon, ebay, or even through the publisher (Moody Press)
Conclusion: Keep

I remember buying this book. It was from my favorite used book store (which has sadly closed down), and was one of the first Bible stories I ever bought my daughter. At the point when I bought this one, I wasn't even thinking of creating a Bible story library.  In fact, I hadn't even started the routine of reading a Bible story before bedtime; we just read books and the Bible stories were in the general collection. I didn't begin intentionally reading Bible stories before bed until a friend mentioned that she was doing it with her own son. I liked the idea so much I began that routine with my daughter too, and thus began my quest to build a library of Bible stories for her. Thanks, Peanut, great idea!

Note: This story is covered in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but differs slightly among the different books. The board book states that it is following the version in told in Mark (though I think it stays a bit truer to the version in Luke).  Regardless, I will be comparing it to all three version.

The Good Points:

• This board book stays very close to the story in Mark and Luke.
• It is sturdy and well-made.
• The cover has holes cut for the window and door so you can see the pictures through it on the next page.
• It has colorful pictures that are appealing to young children.
• The story is very short so it will even fit a toddler's short attention span. (Some of the sentence structures are a bit complicated for that age though, so I simplify some of them until my child gets old enough to understand the more complicated ones that are written).
• It's about a child, so children are more interested in it.

The Discrepancies:

• This is more of a discrepancy between the gospels.  In Mark and Luke, Jairus tells Jesus that his daughter is dying.  In Matthew's version, he tells Jesus that she has already died.  This particular board book follows Mark, so it also has Jairus tell Jesus that his daughter was dying.
• The board-book only focuses on Jairus's story. It does not mention the woman who touched Jesus while he was on his way to Jairus's house.
• In this board book, the messenger tell Jairus that his daughter died, but Jesus says she is only sleeping and the crowd laughs at him.  In both Mark and Luke, when the messenger tells Jairus that his daughter had died, Jesus tells him to believe.  He doesn't mention anything about her being asleep until he actually arrives at the house. The people at the house are the ones who laugh at him. Matthew doesn't even mention the messenger, but it does say that people laughed at Jesus when he arrived at Jairus's house and told everyone that the girl was sleeping.

It's a shame that this book is so uncommon. It's a good one and worth having in your Bible story collection.  The back also says that there are 6 titles in that series. I was curious to see if I could find more from that series and did find one set on ebay, which I promptly purchased because I've been curious about these books for a while. One was a duplicate to the book I reviewed today, so if you are local and want a copy for yourself, watch my church's Little Free Library for a few days and you might get lucky :) Anyway, I recommend this book for ages 1-5.