God's World (Wee Sing Bible Songs and Stories)

God's World
Wee Sing Bible Songs and Stories
Written by Carolyn Larsen
Illustrated by Carole Boerke
Copyright: 1998
Format: Board book
Status: Not currently in print. I cannot even find pre-owned copies on ebay.

Conclusion: Get Rid of It

 

This was one of our very first Bible stories. I picked it up off of a little free library back when my daughter was still a very young infant.  At that point in time she hated books and cried and any time we sat down to read them.  There were only two books she liked (Papa, Please Get the Moon For Me by Eric Carl and a Winnie the Pooh crinkle book), but there were three other books she would tolerate.  This book was one of those three, so we read it over and over and over again. At that point in time, I was so grateful to have another book she would tolerate, that I didn't care about the quality. It was a Bible story too! How could it be bad? Then, because it was part of our collection for so long, we just kept it and I never really bothered to evaluate it.  A few months ago it fell behind my son's bed and got stuck, so I hadn't read it ages, but when I finally got it back out again and read it to him, I was suddenly very wary of it. Looking at it with a critical eye, I don't think this book will stay in our collection. I guess it's time to see just how bad it really is. Originally it seems to have come with a cassette tape which I have never owned, so I cannot comment on the quality of the music or songs.

The Good Points:

• The images are bright and colorful.
• The language is simple and easy for young children to understand.

The Discrepancies:

• This book states that in the beginning there was no water.  The Bible, however, says that "darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters."
• This storybook doesn't separate out specific days. On different pages it says different things that God creates, but never mentions any periods of time.  It is especially difficult to judge the passage of time because some "days" span multiple pages and some are only one page long.
• The board book doesn't mention anywhere that God created Heaven (or sky, depending on your translation).  In other words, this book skips the entire second day of creation.
• This book also skips day four where God creates the sun, moon and stars. It doesn't mention them anywhere, but the illustration on the first page indicates that it merged those with Day 1 when God created day and night.
• This book also never mentions that Adam is made in the image of God, nor does it mention that he was meant to rule over the animals.

I have decided to remove this book from my family's collection. I don't like how things get mixed around and skipped.  One thing I did notice, though, was how nicely this book managed to fit the story of creation into the Big Bang Theory and the Theory of Evolution.  Everything in this book happens in the correct order to fit those theories.  

I designed this blog to compare children's Bible books to the real Bible, which is why I have come to the conclusion that we should "get rid of" this book; it doesn't match the Bible.  However, if you are an Old Earth Christian, you may still be okay with having this book in your library. This book is probably appropriate for ages 2-5, though I certainly read it to my children at much younger ages.