Children’s Bibles

I compiled this list after a discussion with a friend who was looking for some bible curriculum for her little ones. My opinion on bible curriculum is that it should be based on the bible! We’ve tried doing devotionals with the kids, but we aren’t very good at it. However, with a good children’s bible, we can have a scripture-like reading and possibly followup discussion with our kids. The kids have ‘read through’ the bible (via children’s bibles) at least once per year of their life so far and I don’t see the trend ending. I think this is amazing! We tend to do our scheduled bible first in the morning after breakfast and then they get to pick a story in the evening before bed. Here are the children’s bibles we’ve used or are planning to use soon.

Our favorite bible for littles is by far The Jesus Storybook Bible. We’ve been through (destroyed) two of them and currently don’t have a copy. The illustrations are great for the little ones and each summary brings the point back to Jesus, which we really thought was great. Hannah would ask for this one every night. It comes with an audio CD of some of the stories.

I have this bible because I have loved all the “Usborne” books that I’ve run into and I really enjoy their illustrations. I haven’t read it to see if I personally like it, but the kids enjoy it.

For preschool, we used two different ones; Family Time Bible in Pictures and 101 Favorite Stories from the Bible. Both are true to the bible and have short summaries that kids can grasp. I’ve enjoyed both of them. I like the 101 one better because it doesn’t avoid the tougher stories of the bible, but goes through most of them. Some parents shy away from that, but I figure my kids are going to get to those stories when we read the real thing in the not too distant future, so I’m not going to sugar coat it now. They both have discussion questions after each section.

Hannah’s Kindergarten bible is Ergermeier’s Bible Story Book. The sections are longer and you need to be a little more mature to do this one. This one adds extra details that you might not get from reading the direct bible passage, like historical things happening at the same time or insights into a person’s character. I’ve found them to be interesting. It is also chronological instead of in bible book order. I was losing Ben when I was reading this one to Hannah, so I ended up reading separately to each of them. Discussion questions in the back. Overall, very happy with this one.

The bible we’ll be using next year is the Beginner’s Bible and the first one that Sonlight has the children read to themselves. (And my understanding is after this one, they move into the actual bible for bible time with supporting material for discussion topics). Hannah has read it many times already, so I suppose she’ll be bored with it by then, but I’ll still have her do it for reading practice. We’ll also be doing Leading Little One’s to God which looks like it will be great for discussion of some difficult topics. I haven’t personally read either of these yet, so can’t compare.

This is the picture/comic version of the bible that Ben will be receiving soon. I think he’s going to love it. I haven’t read it yet, so I reserve my opinion on whether it is ‘good’.

Note: There are so many resources out there. I can’t possibly know about all of them. This post is based solely on my experience. Other Christian curriculums that might provide bible material: ABeka, My Father’s World, Horizons. Of course, I recommend Sonlight, but you can’t buy just the “bible” part of it, it is integrated through the whole curriculum. If you go to this link and click on the age ranges in the right column, you can see the bibles recommended by the Sonlight curriculum for each ‘grade’.