Goodbook Partner Review: Welcome to Bible World by Mike Nappa and illustrated by Emiliano Migliardo

 

What I like about the book:

• This book will build interest in the Books of the Bible, and help create more biblical literate kids. 
• The pictures and seek and find are super fun and mirror secular books, but the hidden items and the attractions in the amusement park are connected to events in the Bible, and events that engage children in the events of the Bible and wonder if these concepts are really true.  
• Scripture references with hidden items that connect to a specific passage that will create a more biblically literate person.  
• The theme park entrances to different areas each lead to a different subset or genre of the Books of the Bible.  The titles given are more fun than traditional titles, and also more memorable.  
• The intro to each park area share the main themes of this section of the Bible, and teach the reader what important concepts connect in each genre.
• The author asks questions to the reader to build the interaction with the kids and the book. 

What I wonder about the book:

• The glossy pages are thick and seem enduring, but I wonder if it will show fingerprints and attract dirt to the pages more than matte format.  

Educational Connections:

• Teach the books of the Bible, teach the genres, and even the timeline as you build interest with this book. 
• Have your children create their own hidden items for new pages or add to these pages with the bible references.  
• Take away- ask the kids to see if other people know what books of the Bible belong in each theme park.  (The kids will need to remember the answer to know if adults or others are correct.) 

Thankful to partner with the Goodbook company and read a review copy of the book.  

Netgalley Partner Review: WayMaker: Finding the Way to the Life You’ve Always Dreamed Of by Ann Voskamp

Ann Voskamp's gift is the ability to share her spiritual growth, grasp of the Word of God, greek/Hebrew words, and their meanings, and her personal story for others to learn from her experiences.  This book is her most vulnerable and personal of all her books.   Because of this, I suspect it is not as applicable for all readers.  It's more complex, more biblically, and theologically in-depth than her previous books.   In some ways it builds on some concepts, she's lived out loud for her readers before, but in many, she is sharing her own personal journey and exodus of sin and losing her way, as well as remembering just what truly her life's focus is. 

As a biblically literate person, about her age, I appreciate her thoughts, her self-discovery of how to focus on God,  abide in the Way, focus on stepping into cruciform, and praise, over choosing to curve to your own desires, addictions, and way.  She continues with the repetition and building on concepts throughout the book as she has in previous writing, but she has learned through her marriage, adoption, and broken heart, each as their own metaphor and dimension, which I believe is more complex than her other books.  As well as the shocking events in her life that many of her readers will not comprehend her experience at all.  But we can all choose to learn from her.  

She continues to share her learning from therapeutic concepts, attachment/adoption with real-life experience, and she is brutally honest about her own experiences.  In her poetic way, she reveals how to live a life focused on dying to self, living in Him, and how easy it can be to alter your own course with minor life changes, but how large an impact that has on your soul your people.  This book is not as easily replicated in the reader's life, as her daily habits and focus require a lot of commitment to the Word of God, the Holy Spirit, and personal soul-care/reflection.  But for me, they are healthy habits to weave into who I am, and it encourages me to press on and grow in Him.

Thankful to read an Advanced Netgalley copy.  

Goodbook Partner Review: The Prisoners, the Earthquake, and the Midnight Song, a True Story about how God uses People to Save People.

 

See my review of the original edition here. 

What I like about the book:

• Listening Theme.
• Shortened version of the full hardback book.  
• Still gives the gospel.  
• Nice size board book. 

What I wonder about the book:

• Why the image is repeated just as in the hardcover book- but the words are not. From my review of the hardback: 
• Image repeated throughout with the same wording describing the cross, the stone rolled away when Jesus is alive,and the Holy Spirit.   (Jesus forgives, lives so we can live forever, and follow Him as Our King).  
• The cover is a matte finish, and I wish the pages were as well.  

Thankful to partner with the Goodbook company and review this book, all ideas are my own.