Three New Children’s Bibles, Spring 2026
By Damaris Zehner
Writing a Bible storybook is challenging. Authors have to make the message accurate, interesting, and relevant to children. They make editorial decisions about what to include, what to omit, and how to organize while staying faithful to the original text. They consider what age child to write for, whether the stories are best read aloud or independently, and how much commentary to include. How do The Just Love Story Bible, God’s Colorful Kingdom, and God’s Stories as Told by God’s Children meet these challenges?
All three books make their editorial decisions clear right on the cover. The Just Love Story Bible (Beaming Books, 2025), by Jacqui Lewis and Shannon Daley-Harris, illustrated by Cheryl “Ras” Thuesday, makes its focus on liberation and revolution evident in the chapter headings. God’s Colorful Kingdom (Tyndale Kids, 2025), written by Esau McCaulley and illustrated by Rogerio Coelho, emphasizes unity in diversity. God’s Stories as Told by God’s Children (The Bible for Normal People, 2025) uses different writers and illustrators for each story to represent the many voices of the Bible.
The Just Love Story Bible, despite its revolutionary chapter headings, is simply a retelling of the salvation story. The authors provide background before each section – the Pentateuch, prophets, psalms, Gospels, etc. – but the stories themselves are retold without additions. While this book could be read aloud to children of five and up, it is also a good choice for children reading at a fourth grade level or above. Unfortunately, the print is tiny, but the content is accessible, and the chapter and verse for every Bible story is included.
God’s Colorful Kingdom has bright, childlike pictures and is designed for reading aloud to younger children. Every story is interwoven with added commentary and explanation rather than being simply retold. Like The Just Love Bible, this book follows the historical arc of the salvation story, and Bible verses accompany each chapter.
God’s Stories as Told by God’s Children includes commentary and discussion questions with every story. The questions suggest that this book is designed more for classrooms or family Bible time than for silent reading. The timeline is complex – the book begins with the fall of Jerusalem, regresses to the Garden of Eden, then back to the creation and on to the flood, before continuing more chronologically. Characters’ emotions and reactions are assumed and added to stories that in the Bible are told objectively. Because each story has a different author, the perspective often changes, from “they” to “we,” for example, or from past tense to present tense. If these stories are read aloud one a day, the changes should not be jarring, but children reading alone may not find that the stories create a single narrative arc – which, to be fair, is true of the Bible itself.
All three books are beautifully illustrated and bound. While the authors have made editorial decisions about what to present and how to present it, the stories remain faithful to Christian doctrine. My favorite of the three is The Just Love Bible because it heeds Revelation 22:18-19 and doesn’t add or interpret as much as the others; I recommend it as the most accurate retelling. God’s Stories as Told by God’s Children could be useful to spark discussions in older children, and God’s Colorful Kingdom is the best for reading aloud to young ones. Both books add to the original stories, and buyers can decide if the additions help to make God’s message interesting and relevant to children today.
Damaris Zehner
Damaris Zehner is an essayist, poet, and teacher of composition, rhetoric, literature, and ESL. She has worked as a Peace Corps volunteer and missionary in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, as well as in the United States. She lives in Indiana.
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