Wednesday, November 18, 2009

The Story of Christmas


Illustrated by Steve Smallman
Ages: 4-7
Put out by: Thomas Nelson
Price: $10.99

It is so easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season, and often we lose sight of the true meaning. We shouldn't forget Jesus and the amazing miracle of His birth. The Story of Christmas is a great book that will help kids to focus on the true Christmas story.

The book is broken down into smaller stories, starting with Gabriel appearing to Zechariah and concluding with Mary, Joseph, and Jesus returning to Nazareth. Each story is short enough to keep the attention of young children, and the pictures are bright and fun. I really like that at the end of each story is a simple question to get the child to think about the feelings of the people or the meaning of the story. One example -- "Why do you think God would want His Son to be born where the animals were kept?".

The book includes a DVD of stories. I expected it to just be pictures from the book with narration. I was pleasantly suprised to see that the animation was great and replicated from the illustrations in the book! Each story is included and after we read the book, the kids enjoyed watching it on TV! There are also some pages at the end that contain pictures, and the kids are to choose the story order of each set. This helps to review what they learned and my 5 year-old thought it was fun!

This book would be perfect to use as a daily devotion with kids, and reading it in the days leading up to Christmas would be really fun for the entire family! Thanks to Thomas Nelson for allowing us to review The Story of Christmas!

***Disclosure: Mama Buzz and reviewers, received a complimentary copy of this book for review purposes.

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