A Recommendation

I just completed a piece for the magazine called "Quick Takes," which is a collection of recommendations--books, CDs, movies, etc. I included a book that I have recommended here on my blog, but it was a long time ago, plus now there is a deluxe edition so I am re-featuring it. I am so excited about this I can hardly contain myself.

On October 1st, The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name was released in new fancy packaging, PLUS (here's the super exciting part) three audio CDs unabridged, read/narrated by none other than David Suchet.

Before I get on that, let me go back to the Storybook Bible. It's written by Sally Lloyd-Jones. Many, many people have reviewed it already and far better than I could. My favorite review is by Kathy Keller, wife of Tim Keller.

You can read the whole review here, but here are some excerpts: "Most children's books of Bible stories are little more than a Christianized version of Aesop's fables, or at best, a Christian adventure cartoon. But Sally goes out of her way in the first pages of the book to reclaim the true story of the Bible...This is heady theology, often missed in adult preaching and teaching, but fully realized in an age appropriate and attractive form that will delight children and often (at least for me) leave the grown-up reader in tears. More wondrously, she has avoided the moralism and legalism that so often characterizes Christian educational materials for children....It is very hard to find (or even produce) material for children that doesn't essentially contain the message 'Be good, so that God, your heavenly Father, will love you, and your earthly parents will be happy with you, too.' To discover The Jesus Storybook Bible is to have a unique resource for communicating the gospel to children in all it's fullness."

Now, on to the new audio version. This is what Sally Lloyd-Jones had to say about that, not to me personally, but in her newsletter. Though I must add, she is just the nicest, sweetest person. If you visit her blog and leave a comment, she'll come over to your blog and leave a comment. I understand that that is good blog etiquette, but did I mention that SHE WROTE THE JESUS STORYBOOK BIBLE? I almost fell down when I saw her comment on one of my blog posts, particularly when I was just nattering on about how much I love Target or whatever.

Anyway, she said this about the recorded version: "I was fortunate enough to be in London exactly then and sat in on the recording. And met David. What a lovely man. (And a rascal--my favorite). He did an incredible job. Such an honor that he would read it. (Oh. That's a fat suit he wears BTW for Hercule Poirot; and his voice? Several octaves lower.)Before he began the recording, David described how he was approaching the voice of the narration. 'It's me reading to my daughter' he told me. Which is funny because that is exactly the same thought that guided Luther in the language he chose in translating the Bible into German--and the guiding principle for me as I wrote the book: that the voice of the text not be the voice of academics in the universities, but the voice of a mother speaking to her children. And we just heard: the book won Honors in the Audio and Storytelling Category of the 2009 NAPPA Awards. (Before you google NAPPA and find out it's 'The North American Potbellied Pig Association' and begin to feel sorry for me and my book and poor David Suchet, don't be dismayed. What we won was the 'National Parenting Publication Awards.')

See, isn't she a treat? And you can listen to a sample of David Suchet reading it here.

We bought the Storybook Bible when it first came out about two years ago. Lucy and I read through it together, and it is so moving to hear the most beloved story in such a fresh, new way. We go back to it over and over again. And if you already own a copy, you should still get this deluxe version and also give it as a gift to anyone with children or grandchildren, because not only is David Suchet Hercule Poirot, he is also the voice of Aslan on the audio version of The Chronicles of Narnia.

It's like having Aslan read the Bible to you. How cool is that? Buy it.