Read with my 7 and 5 year old boys:Janice Green is a quilter. The illustrations she uses are actually quilt blocks she did in colorful fabrics related to the story. Usually, it bugs me when an artist skips the dinosaurs, but this book only has about 4 animals in the picture with Adam: of course there wasn’t space for the T-Rex!The main section of each short page of text is a “paraphrase” of the Bible. She just took the original words and simplified it to a young child’s level. Hebrew scholars would pull their hair out with some of what she leaves out, but they aren’t the people Mrs. Green wrote for. Personally, I added little bits Mrs. Green had left out to every page, but I’m always doing that!What we enjoyed most, besides the pictures, were the questions at the bottom of each page. Basic things like “how do you feel in a dark place?” or “what is your favorite animal?” help kids connect. Others help them think through why God did what He did and how Adam and Eve must have felt after their sin. Each page of text had about four questions to get kids’ brains going.The Creation is a short book, only 16 pages of pictures and text, making it a pleasant one-sitting read even for the squirmier ones. Each day of Creation gets its own illustration and word page closing with the account of Adam and Eve’s Fall.The book doesn’t get into how God planned to rescue them; you’ll need to discuss Jesus some other way, but that’s no biggy. I was pleased with how quickly my 5 year old understood the connection between Adam as “ruler” and how his sin affected the rest of creation. Wording big concepts like that for little ones isn’t easy!At the back, there’s a full page for parents with encouraging reminders of the importance of remembering God as Creator. Last is a page of ideas for making your own Creation Quilt and mini-bio of the author.
