Jon's Blog

Proverbs for Kids from the Book

I don’t normally review children’s books because I don’t have a lot of exposure to them, but this book is an exception.  What do you read with your kids for their devotional time?  We have tried a number of different books, but this one has provided the most profitable instruction to this point.

Here’s an example of the text from one page (p. 63):

The Facts

[Imagine a nice cartoon here of Mr. Wisdom showing two boys where to build a tree fort.  In the background, B.A. (Bad Attitude) is pointing to a tree that will obviously not hold the fort up.]

Any enterprise is built by wise planning.  It becomes strong through common sense and profits wonderfully by keeping abreast of the facts.  The fool is only fooling himself when he doesn’t care about the facts and therefore won’t face them.  What a shame–yes, how stupid!–to decide before knowing the facts!  So get the facts, at any price.

Proverbs 14:8 / 18:1, 2, 13 / 23:22, 23 / 24:3, 4

What do I like about this book?

• It is completely biblically based.  No fluffy stories with a Bible verse tacked on here.
• It challenges us as parents.  This book provides a summary of the main principles that come out of the Proverbs.  I actually think that adults benefit from this book as much as kids.
• It has cartoons.  What kid doesn’t like cartoons?  And especially when they challenge the kids to think about the Bible and their lives.  Each page has one cartoon that applies the principle from Proverbs.  The message of the cartoon requires thinking to understand.  This is where the learning takes place as the kids have to think about the cartoon and apply it to their lives.
• Each page is short in content but long in discussion-starting potential.  If we don’t have much time for our devotional we read only one page which takes about 3 minutes.  If we have more time, we read two pages and discuss them.  This can lead to 15 minute discussions of the teaching of Proverbs.

What might you not like about this book?

• The translation (paraphrase) of the Proverbs used at the back of the book is the Living Bible.  You may or may not like the Living Bible, but I personally don’t think it takes away from the book because you could read the proverbs from whatever translation you wanted when you reached the end of the book.
• It’s out of print, so you may struggle to find it in the future (but check out the Amazon link to see if it’s available).

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