Anyways... This special blog post is to review the 'daily activity and scripture book' made by Kids Read Truth. In particular I'll be reviewing their 1 & 2 Corinthians book which I bought as we are studying 2 Corinthians at church at the moment.
It's so beautiful! If you've ever come across the She/He/Kids Read Truth stuff, you'll know that everything they produce is very aesthetically pleasing. The designs in the book are very cute and the quality of the book is really nice (you'd hope so as it's super expensive - more on that later). The pages are nice and thick so you could write in them with a Texta or pen and not have to worry about the ink coming through. The font and size makes it really clear to read and gives you space to scribble. Each daily reading is spread across two pages with lots of space for new writers to fill in their responses. Everything inside is in black and white, so if your kid loves colouring this book will provide hours of entertainment.
Bible stuff:
One of the things that drew me to the She/He/Kids Read Truth scripture books is that it's not a devotional book which gives an explanation of the passage. It includes the full text of the passage and provides 1-2 questions relating to the passage. The rest is up to you! This may be a bit daunting to some parents who may be unsure what a passage is talking about though I like that it forces you to focus on what the Bible text says instead of what some unknown person has said about it. The translation of Bible that is used is the Christian Standard Bible (CSB, formally known as the Holman Christian Standard Bible HCSB). I'm not used to reading CSB myself, I'm more familiar with a ESV or NIV. As I've read this CSB translation with my 5 year old, I've found that the language is very difficult for him to understand. I'm sure other parents will think the same. With that being said though, it has forced me to try and simplify it for my son which I think is always a worthwhile activity to do when trying to understand the Bible for myself.
This 1 & 2 Corinthians book doesn't go through the whole text of 1 & 2 Corinthians but rather looks at some of the major themes in those books: wisdom, Jesus as our foundation, the Spirit, the church, etc. The book is presented as a Boy Scouts/Girl Guides adventure where you earn badges (stickers) along the way as you learn about what life with Jesus is about. At the end of each week, there is an "Old Testament rewind" which links the weeks topic to a verse in the Old Testament. I also purchased another one of their books on Matthew to do at a later time which works chronologically through the narrative of Matthew and provides a memory verse from Matthew to learn at the end of each week.
The activities:
There are a range of different activities to do: find-a-words, mazes, list making, colouring in, drawing, code breakers, connect the dots and more. I'm sure your child age 6-9 (the target audience for these books) will find something they enjoy. At the end of each week's readings there is a sticker/badge that you are awarded. There are other stickers included to use at your discretion. Some of my favourite activities in the book are the ones where you have to analyse the text. We had to circle all the times the word 'wisdom' appeared and my 5-year old emerging reader was able to find the word 3 times and was very chuffed with himself about it. When asked "who are the wisest people you know?" he suggested "The Wise Old Elf" (from Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom) which is a bit of a silly answer... but he's recognised the idea of wisdom in a kids TV show and linked it to the word wisdom in the Bible passage so I'm taking that as a win! At the end of the book is a page to summarise what you learnt as well as write a bit about yourself so you can look back and remember what your little one was like when they completed the book.
Is it worth it?
I mentioned before, the biggest negative for me with these activity books is that they are very expensive. You can only purchase them online from the US and there is a whopping $20US flat rate shipping fee. They are a very high quality (although single use) book and I bought a few things at a time (their advent cards and some other scripture books) so in that sense I thought it was worth it to give it a try. I have to admit that we really struggle to read the Bible with our 5 year old so I was hoping that this resource would make things easier. We have previously tried to read a number of children's Bibles with poor response ("The pictures are boring." "There are too many pages." "It's too long."). So far, my son has enjoyed doing the daily readings with me. He's happy to listen to the Bible reading even if he doesn't understand it (I think he likes the 'grown-up' language) and he has enjoyed the activities (even though he can't read or write yet... but he has developing literacy skills). The characters in the book are attractive and the stickers (for the moment) are providing sufficient motivation to keep reading each day. I think that these books are worth a try but because of the cost of them it's not something that I'll be doing regularly through the year. I think it's probably a good idea to have a bit of variety in terms of reading a children's bible, doing a devotional, doing an activity book and reading an adult Bible. I guess the goal is to keep the whole family immersed in the word of God in everyday life. It's not always easy but reading God's word is always worth it. I hope that by starting with these Kids Read Truth books that our son will develop a love of God's word and will grow in his understanding and love of Him.
I hope this review has given your a glimpse of what is included in these daily scripture books and has helped you to decide whether you want to give them a go or not.
Are there any other questions or things that you'd like to find out about these books? I'd love to know. Write a comment below!
