The Play-Along Bible

The Play-Along Bible written by Bob Hartman and illustrated by Susie Poole is a delightful series of Bible stories accompanied by instructions for gestures and activities.

There are about fifty stories all a dozen lines or less excluding the ‘activity’ lines so they don’t lose the little ones’ attention.  Now, I will mention that the first few times through while the adult reader learns the activity parts, it’s a little slower and you have to have an attentive child in order for it to work.  But like any song with hand motions, once you’ve gotten them down, the kids love them.

The illustrations in The Play-Along Bible are charming.  They are simple characters but some of the illustrations have a lot of detail.  Even the ‘bad guys’ are not depicted in a way that would trouble the very young.  The only exception I found was “A Good Neighbor” in which the injured man has a fairly gruesome appearance which I’m sure was supposed to be a grimace of pain.  One particular element of the pictures that I really appreciated is that Jesus is dressed in the same robe throughout so the “picture-reader” can pretty quickly figure out which stories Jesus appears in.

Overall, The Play-Along Bible is a great read and I would definitely recommend it.

Tyndale House, the publisher of The Play-Along Bible supplied a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and impartial review.