The Family Illustrated Bible published by New Leaf Press, a division of Master Books, is a beautiful bible for children as well as their families. With a beautiful mix of artwork, photographs and informational spreads, this work is a hybrid between a children's bible, and a bible reference book. This full color bible contains illustrations as well as photographs which bring bible stories, bible culture and bible history to life. The world of the bible is vividly presented through the illustrations, bible stories and commentaries.
There is a wide variety of art in this single volume- ranging from richly expressive full color art to line illustrations that are simple, yet unique in artistic style. Some of the stylized art is somewhat reminiscent of a teenagers doodles, while others are similar to oil paintings of the masters. Nevertheless, they compliment the bible for their originality. The inclusion of this artwork by a broad range of artists adds to the value of this bible. The reader could spend hours just enjoying the art and photographs. The informational side bars of information as well as the photographs are perfect to give some historical background to the world of the bible. Nevertheless, the historical side bars are not just spiritual in nature as they offer historical and archeological background for biblical stories and events, in some cases. The text is based on bible scripture, yet is more of a paraphrase. Selected verses and passages are highlighted and included word-for-word.
Overall this is one of the better, most complete bible to introduce young children and older children alike to God's word. It is a bible to be passed down to future generations, in fact. In the saturated market of children's bibles this one stands apart from the rest. This bible is perfectly suitable to be read aloud by a parent, or for older children to read themselves. Not only that, this bible is the perfect study bible for young readers. Of all the bibles on the market for children- this is among the best, quality bibles I have read. As a blogger for New Leaf press, I received this book for the purpose of writing this review. NLP is a division of Master Books. This is a bible that I feel is perfect to read to my children.
In my local public library I saw almost the same exact children's bible published by DK books- except with a different cover. But, everything else was the same. Even the illustration, photograpph insert pages and text was the same! But, as far as the authors- I think they were different. So, I now am not sure which came firt- the DK book or Master Books version????
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