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The Action Storybook BIble





The Action Storybook Bible

This graphic illustrated Bible (done by Sergio Cariello) with text from the NIV and Catherine DeVries, gives the reader a real sense of the narrative of the Bible and the characters involved in the various stories.  The book highlights fifteen key stories or episodes in the Bible and provides beautiful illustrations that highlight the facial expressions, activity, and geography of the biblical passages that the authors are engaging.  Overall, the book has an alarming effect of drawing the reader into the story, calling readers to read the stories in the Bible in their entirety and learning the message of God's redemption in Christ.

In the message of Jonah, the authors and illustrator give us a picture of what it meant for God to call Jonah to Nineveh and his response.  The comment, "When God talks to a person and tells him to do something, don't you think he would go ahead and do it?  Not Jonah!"  The grimace on Jonah's face is telling of the way a person responds in jest to God's calling him to do something that he would rather never do.  The author paraphrases the Biblical prophet by stating, "He couldn't believe God wanted him to waste his time on such an evil and horrible group of people in Nineveh." (140)  The reluctance of Jonah comes through more as an objection to God's calling him to Nineveh, the dreaded people of Nineveh didn't deserve any word of judgment in Jonah's eyes. 

The illustrations in this book are captivating, showing the extreme nature of the human experience but also the cruelty that humans had for Jesus.  In the section on the crucifixion, Jesus grimaces on the cross as one in utter despair and pain.  The authors take great strides to conflate the gospel accounts of his death and give the picture of how the earth shook upon the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.   We also see the anguish of Mary as she cries and cries upon seeing her son being executed as a criminal.

This was a good selection of biblical stories in both illustrative and artistic form.  The downfalls for this kind of work is its selection process where many significant and powerful stories were left off.  Further, some of the accounts could have been done in more detail, namely the death and resurrection.  The Hall of Fame index was good but again, there were many that were left out for reasons of space I imagine.

Thanks to LitFuse Publicity Group and David C. Cook Communications for the book in exchange for an honest review.

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