Lenny Hort

The illustrations are of old masters paintings. The setting is in a small town that has a beautiful wind mill and a dyke that holds back the water. Peter is a small boy who has a large way of getting into trouble. When Peter asked his mother to avoid Sunday morning church service so he could visit and read to a blind man, Mr. Schuyler, who lives five miles up the canal. She gave him a lunch and a pie for Mr. Schuyler.

Barely out of his mother's sight, Peter ate the pie. He didn't like the lunch, so he killed and had a fire to grill the squirrel. Peter discovered a small leak in the dyke. Knowing even a small leak can cause a big problem, he wrapped a handkerchief around his finger to stop the leaking. Finally, it the night, the water was stopped.

Now Peter needed help getting home. Along came the most wicked man of the small town. Captain Blauvelt went back to town and gathered a group of men to help. Peter was now known as a hero, rather than a trouble maker.… (lisätietoja)

As a biblical scholar and Jewish teacher, this is an excellent Tanakh for children. As the introduction states, even though Christians include the "new testament" in what they call the bible, Jews read only what scholars call the Hebrew Bible, and that is all this book contains. There is no reading later Christian ideas back into our sacred text, and there are no stories about a first century Jew whose followers started a sect which eventually broke with Judaism. Reviewers who complain that this bible only contains the "old testament" should read the description more closely. A Jewish bible shouldn't contain the sacred texts of another religion in addition to our own.

Although it is not a complete Tanakh, this Hebrew Bible contains information that would be new to many adult Jews who have no background in biblical studies. In addition to illustrations of scenes from the stories, the book also contains explanations and images in the margins. For example, treasures recovered from the ancient city of Ur (Avram's original home), a cedar in Lebanon, maps of the geographical areas being described, and a throne recovered from Egypt. These pieces of archaeological data enhance one's understanding of the biblical texts and introduce Jewish children to the importance of scholarship in our tradition. There is also an index of people and places at the end of the book.

The book is the author's own retelling of the biblical texts. If you want something that follows the Hebrew text more closely, consider the JPS Children's Bible. The storytelling here is superb, and the writing is appropriate to young audiences. There are some 'big words' in the narrative, but my first grade students can sound them out. While children do need things to be simplified for their growing minds, they don't need things to be dumbed down; this book does the former but not the latter. Educational research also shows that discussing texts with children helps them to improve their reading skills; teach children to ask when they don't know the meaning of a word.

My only complaint regarding the Children's Illustrated Jewish Bible is its length; I would have preferred it to be longer and contain more of the Tanakh. Just under 200 pages may seem long for a children's book, but I had thicker books of Disney stories as a child. Furthermore, there is no expectation that one read through the entire Tanakh at once, so a longer text would pose no problems. A longer text would have also allowed for the inclusion of characteristic selections from the book of Leviticus, which is entirely absent, and from Numbers and Deuteronomy, which have two stories total. The Torah is so central to Jewish life that 3/5 of it should not have been largely ignored. Especially since it is common for children not to begin reading the Tanakh until they are familiar with the entire Torah.

The table of contents is organized by topics rather than by biblical book. The topics are Tabernacles and Temples (i.e. prehistory), Patriarchs (Genesis), Life in Egypt (Exodus), Life in Canaan (mostly Samuel and Kings), and Conquering Nations (prophets and writings). Each topic is introduced with a 2 page overview. At the top of each story, there is a biblical citation. The breakdown by book is as follows.

Pages 17-29, and 32-65 are stories from Genesis; 68-85 are Exodus; 86 & 87 are Numbers; 90 & 91 are Numbers/Deuteronomy; 92-95 are Joshua; 96-103 are Judges; 104-107 is Ruth; 108-133 are 1st and 2nd Samuel; 134-149 and 155-157 are 1st and 2nd Kings; 152 & 153 is Jonah; 154 is Ezekiel; 158-161 is Jeremiah; 162-167 is Daniel; 168-171 is Esther; 172-173 is Nehemiah/Zechariah; 174-175 is Ezra/Nehemiah; 176-178 is Psalms/Ecclesiastes/Proverbs/Song of Songs.

Overall, these stories are a good summary of the history of biblical Israel, but they do not accurately reflect the relative importance of each book of Tanakh in Jewish life and study.… (lisätietoja)