Making the Bible Engaging for Children

Ninja cows, ridiculous rhymes and search and find – we really have been creative in our ways to make the Bible as engaging as possible for children. But working with such an ancient and established text means that a lot of ground has already been covered. Pick an idea for a Bible-based children’s book and it’s probably already out there.

So, as SPCK’s children’s editor, the challenge for me then becomes, how can these stories be retold in an original way? And how can we make sure that our young readers are being impacted by the Bible?

This is something I’m constantly thinking about and so I thought I’d share my top three ideas for how I think we can be making the Bible fun and engaging for young children:

1. Relevance

First and foremost for me, it’s about making books which are relevant for children, with themes and characters that resonate with them. And this resonance has to appear in the text on many levels, from the themes within the book to the representation of diversity on the page. Children have to be able to identify with a book in order to engage with it.

On our list, Fiona Veitch Smith’s Young Joseph books are wonderful in their ability to pull out parts of the Joseph story and make it relevant for children. From sibling rivalry to loneliness, these are feelings which children can relate to, and I think this is one of the great strengths of Fiona’s marvellous series.

2. Originality

The children’s books we publish need to stand out. In one sense I mean visually, with bright colours and bold text, but I also mean that these need to be distinctive from the other books being sold or displayed on the shelf.

Paul Kerensa’s latest books, Noah’s Car Park Ark and Moses and the Exodus Express, do this marvellously. Combining classic bible stories with a modern twist, these books see Noah stacking the animals onto the ark car-park style, and the Israelites escaping slavery with a one way ticket on the Exodus Express. Teaching Bible stories with fun and humour, Paul’s original approach means that these books really do capture the imagination of their young readers.

3. Engaging

This might seem obvious, but children’s books need to be engaging. They need to be the kind of books that children want to hear at bedtime night after night after night. The kind of books that get dog-eared from being carried around and constantly read from. The kind of books that parents could read in their sleep from familiarity.

Rhyme is a great way to do this, and we’re delighted to be publishing Bob Hartman’s Rhyming Bible early next year. Bob has a knack for storytelling and this skill, combined with rhyme, feels like a winning combination. If you can’t wait that long, Paul Kerensa’s Noah and Exodus Express mentioned above are also written in rhyme, and Paul has shown himself to be quite the master at it, honing his rhyming skills through reading his work to his harshest critics: his own two children.

So there you have it, my top tips for how we can be engaging children with the age-old-but-ever-important message of the Bible, and a few books that I reckon are ticking all the right boxes with this. Happy reading!

Juliet Trickey, Commissioning Editor, SPCK

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