My Pajama Bible: A Review
A Bible Makes a Great Easter Present!
For Easter this year, my parents got me Andy Holmes's book, My Pajama Bible: 30 Bedtime Bible Stories. Even though I'm 34 years old now, this is a pretty appropriate gift, considering I have a two-year-old and an infant. The back cover of this book lists the recommended age range as 0-3 years.
The book jacket blurb claims that “as they [children] listen to the stories and point out all the sweet illustrations, they will develop a love for God and [H]is Word.” Now, that’s a pretty big claim to make. And it bothered me that the publishers didn’t capitalize the possessive pronoun referring to God. I thought any respectful Christian was supposed to do that. And, since I’m assuming this book is aimed mostly at Christians, it seems that the publisher should’ve followed that convention. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe nobody follows that anymore.
What I Like About This Book
- The pictures are great. They’re all really brightly colored - very appealing to a young child. My daughter loves to just pick this book up and look at the pictures by herself. And I suppose that’s part of the whole point of this - get kids interested enough to look at this “Bible” for themselves. My daughter really loves the little teddy bear that’s featured throughout the book. Actually, there’s more than one teddy bear, but she doesn’t really make a distinction at this age.
- I also love the rhymes. They’re very clever. I mean, really, I admire anyone who can come up with that many rhyming words, let alone rhyming lines. It seems that they’re going for an A-A-B-B C-C-D-D rhyme scheme (each story is eight lines long). Most of the stories follow this rhyme scheme perfectly; others, not so much. But, like I said, how easy is it to come up with 240 rhyming lines (8 for each of the 30 stories)?
- The stories are definitely short enough to hold a toddler’s attention, but only just. We can read one story at a time - maybe two. Any more than that, and she gets bored and grabs the book out of my hand or gets up out of bed and walks out of the room, which kind of defeats the whole “tucking in” purpose of this book.
- I love that the scripture references are included for each story. That way, you can go back later and share the actual Bible story with your child, if they’ll sit still long enough to listen to it. We are not quite at that point with my daughter, but I'm sure we will be someday.
What I Don't Like About This Book
- The stories are so overdone. By this, I mean that the same Bible stories I heard over and over again as a child are all in this book. Some examples: Noah and the Ark, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, David and Goliath. There are so many great stories in the Bible that could have been included besides all these that we’ve all heard millions of times before. Some notable exceptions that appear in this book are Birds Feed Elijah and Jesus’ parable of The Lost Lamb. I mean, when is somebody going to write a children’s book about good old left-handed Ehud, who killed the Moabite King Eglon to give Israel back control of its land? Okay, just kidding!
- The stories are a little simplistic, too. Take, for instance, Noah. All this eight-line story does is list out animals that are “[o]n old Noah’s floating zoo.” It doesn’t mention anything about why Noah has a floating zoo, and it doesn’t even mention that the animals went on the ark in twos. But, like I said before, maybe you don’t really need to go into much detail for a two-year-old just beginning to learn these stories. And the scripture references are there, so you can look them up and read more, if you feel the need.
A Good Start
All in all, this is a great starter “Bible.” Every night now for the three nights we’ve had it, my daughter picks it up and takes it to bed with her automatically so we can read it together.
Will it help her develop a thirst for God’s Word that will continue throughout her lifetime? Who knows? For now, I’m just happy that it gets her interested in reading, and I love that I get to spend that time every night with her reading and praying with her and telling her a little more about God and His love.