Noah's Ark (Usborne Bible Tales)

 Noah's Ark
Usborne Bible Tales
Retold by Heather Amery
Designed by Maria Wheatley
Illustrated by Norman Young
Copyright: 1996
Format: Paperback
Status: Not currently in print, but many preowned copies are available from ebay



One of the great things about this book is that it can be read at two different levels. You can read only the words at the top of the page and have super-short condensed version of the story for very young kids, or you can read the entire page and have a more detailed story for slightly older children.  This particular book is one I picked up at from my library's discarded book sale.  At the time, my daughter was already a bit old for it, so we never read it much.  My son has never been very interested in the Noah story, and since we have so many, this one almost never gets read to him either.  How does the book measure up to the Bible?

The Good Points:
  • This book stays fairly close to the Bible.
  • The illustrations are colorful and interesting.
  • The sentences are short and clear, making it an excellent choice for young children.
  • This book includes the detail that God told Noah to waterproof the ark with tar (or pitch) inside and out. The illustrations make this obvious by coloring the bottom half of the ark black. 

The Discrepancies:
  • This book starts by saying that Noah was a farmer.  The Bible doesn't explicitly say anything about his occupation before the flood, but it does mention that Noah planted fields after the flood.  It is possible that he was a farmer, it just is not confirmed.
  • The children's book only mentions that there were two of every animal. It does include that there were seven pairs of animals used for eating and sacrifices.
  • While this book does mention that Noah first sent out a raven to see if it could find dry land, it also says that the raven soon returned. The Bible states that the raven flew back and forth until the floodwaters dried up.  Most Biblical scholars interpret that the mean that the raven never returned, though it could be seen flying in the sky.
  • Likewise, the book only mentions that the dove went out once and returned with a twig. The Bible states that the dove went out twice; the first time it returned with nothing, but the second time it had an olive branch.
  • No amount of time is ever mentioned for the length of the flood, only that it lasted for months.
This book seems like it is perfectly fine to keep in your collection of Bible stories. While it does have some mistakes, they appear to be minor ones, or omissions intended for keeping the story shorter and clearer.  We will likely remove it from our own library, but not because of any fault with the book.  We simply have too many Bible stories to fit in the space we have allotted, and need to remove a few. This one has never been a favorite for my kids, and is aimed for younger children so my son will soon be outgrowing it anyway.  It seems like a reasonable one to remove.  After all, there are many Noah stories out there. We will keep the ones that are more appropriate for his age.  I recommend this book for ages 1-4.  



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