Bible-Upholding Books Series

Title: Bible-Upholding Books
Author: Janine Suter
Major Themes: Bible Stories, Creation, Noah’s Flood, Tower of Babel
Synopsis: A set of three picture books which tell the story of Creation, the Fall, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel.

When we were visiting my mother recently, the Bible-Upholding Books series on her shelf caught my eye. I have always loved the children’s books that Master Books publishes, so I read them to my little boys as soon as I could. They loved them! I read the first book one evening, but didn’t have time for the others then. As soon as I sat down on the couch the next morning, one of my boys brought the books over and asked me to read the other two. During the next several days, they requested the books be read to them again and again, and from what I hear, my children’s little cousins love them, too!

The Day the World Went Wacky is about the fall of man soon after Creation. It begins with the question, “Did God make pain?” Then, the author describes the perfection and beauty of the Garden of Eden, and how there was only one rule there. But, could Adam and Eve keep that one rule? We all know what happened next. The consequences help answer the question at the beginning of the book, and a brief call to salvation wraps up the story.

Noah’s Floating Animal Park begins by describing how the perfect earth degenerated and people were being horrible to each other. God saw the sin and degradation, and told Noah to build an ark for his family’s safety. Life inside the ark is shown briefly, and then the animals leaving it and the sign of the rainbow. The story is wrapped up with a short salvation message.

The Not So Super Skyscraper begins with Noah and his family leaving the ark and beginning their new lives after the Flood. As the population grew, people spread out, and many moved to the East. They started building a city, becoming more and more proud and self-sufficient, and worshiping idols. When they decided to build a tower so they could reach heaven, God decided it was time to put a stop to it, so He made the people start speaking different languages.

Each of these books is a great story by itself; together, they tell the complete story of the first 11 chapters of Genesis. I love the way they are told; the rhyming text is fun to read and to hear. The pictures? Not my style, but they get the point across. This is a set of books I would like to have on my own shelves! A side note—the illustrator lives in Timaru, New Zealand, not too far from where we live. I noticed that the name Timaru appears in one of the illustrations, a signpost pointing to various parts of the world where people went when they left Babel.

No warnings!