The Biggest Story: How the Snake Crusher Brings Us Back to the Garden

I bought this book in 2016 and is something we will keep in our library for many years. I’ve repetitively read it to my daughter (10) and now my son (5). It has beautiful illustrations and very simply tells the entire story of the Bible.

This is a children's book for grown-ups. It is a synopsis, or Cliffs Notes, of the whole bible. "No child cold possibly grasp the true depth here", was my initial thought upon reading it. Then I remembered the words of Ralph Venning, a Puritan from the 1600's, who wrote about scripture, "It is deep enough for an elephant to swim in, yet shallow enough for a lamb to wade in." Yes! Children can and will wade happily in this book! They will be captured by the illustration, and enjoy reading again the stories they already know. Also, they will come away from it understanding that the bible is one Big Story - not just a collection of little ones. And adults? Reminded here of the amazing power and "God-ness" of God, they may well swim in the biblical sea of sheer grace. Here are a few of my favorite quotes "God kept his promises. He blessed the whole lot of them despite themselves." "God rounded up Moses to deliver his people - but in reality, God did all the work." "People just couldn't get things right. Thankfully, God was still not done saving his people." "It was God's way of saying, "I'll take care of the rescuing. Just trust me." "This time God was going to do everything himself, to make sure Abraham got his blessing." "Our story is the story of God doing what we can't, in order to make up for us doing what we shouldn't." "God kicks his own people out of Paradise and then does whatever it takes to bring them back again." "The Snake Crusher is coming back again to wipe away all the bad guys and wipe away every tear. Truly this is the Best Story ever!

I tend to be picky about Bible books for my kids. THIS book however quickly became my absolute favorite, and I will be buying more to buy as gifts. What I LOVE: 1) The essence of the Bible is told from a big-picture point of view. So often we focus on each kids Bible story but we forget (in truth, I think a lot of people don't actually know) to teach how those stories are all part of the whole Bible - The Greatest Love Story Ever! This book does so quite effectively. 2) The writing has character - it is fun, creative, enjoyable - for myself and my kids, and was NOT overly poetic. 3) The writing is accurate. I am in agreement with the points the author made and how he made them. 4) The artwork is absolutely spectacular!! Gorgeous!! Simply beautiful! My words do not do it justice. 5) My boys (8 and 6) were upset when I only read a few chapters at a time. They begged me to keep going. What I would like to see NEXT: This book is a beautiful presentation of the overall story of the Bible, but it is not very long. I would definitely be interested in more from him, perhaps more in depth, building on this one? Highly recommend!!!!

Nice book for children.

This is a great intro storybook to teach kids a major theme of redemptive history in the Bible- Jesus Christ is the snake-crushing King of all! Well written, biblically faithful, and your kids will love it. Also currently helpful for evangelizing some children down the street with story time :) highly recommend for kids probably 10 and under. Our daughter loved this story and tracked with it at 2, and older kids we’ve read it with enjoy it as well. Probably best for 3-5 though.

I can't begin to tell you the number of times we have read this cover to cover, my kids love it that much! And we keep buying them to give as gifts. The fill Storybook Bible by the same author and illustrator duo is just as excellent! This paints a God-centric "big picture" for kids to understand Jesus from Genesis to Revelation. Unlike many storybook "bibles" for kids, this one isn't focused on the child, but rather God and Jesus throughout Scripture and what that means for them. It's possibly a small difference when you think about kids getting to know Jesus, but I personally love knowing we are sowing sound theology from the very beginning.

I love this book for my girls. It's SO colorful.

Find any excuse you can to purchase "The Biggest Story" for yourself and everyone you know. "The Biggest Story" is marketed as a children's storybook but it really "leads kids AND parents alike on an exciting journey through the Bible, connecting the dots from the garden of Eden to Christ's death on the cross to the new heaven and new earth." as stated on the fly-leaf. The text focuses on the overarching theme of God's salvation plan as revealed throughout the Bible. This is not the storybook to teach the details of the various Bible stories (how many animals boarded the Ark, where did God give the commandments, etc.) but some of the details can be spotted in the artwork throughout the book (for example the golden calf and the giant Goliath). I love how many of the important stories are summarized in just a few words. An example from part of one page (a page that happens to actually have a fair amount of text): "God sent prophets (but Israel didn't listen). God provided priests (but the priests didn't know how to be holy). Later, God gave them kings (but the kings were a royal pain). Israel was a mess." There truly is something for everyone in this storybook and you (and your kids) will want to read it over and over.

La calidad del libro es demasiado buena en cuanto a impresión. La ilustración es bellísima y la narrativa está muy chida para los niños.

Best written children's Bible yet...the author's biblical accuracy, warmth, and turn of phrase are absolutely delightful. The illustrations are good too, and my four year old son loves it - whenever we finish it, we just start again. The only thing I wish, was that it was twice as long! But for that we have The Big Picture Story Bible which is almost as brilliant. Keep writing children's books Kevin DeYoung, your gift from God is precious!

This book is really for the whole family. Kevin DeYoung has written a very engaging and valuable thematic study of the Bible's arc of creation, fall, redemption, consummation, and Don Clarke has done a marvelous job of illustrating this story both symbolically and very beautifully. With a preacher's ear to summarizing huge ideas in succinct, graspable and memorable one-liners, DeYoung makes this a joy to read aloud to children, and parents will find themselves reading familiar biblical truths in fresh, crisp, clear, and sometimes poetic ways. The interspersion of humour is also nice, and rare in "serious" children's Bible story books. Some reviewers have noted that this reads less like the story of God's redemption and more like a commentary on that story. I would say that is a fair comment, although the story is here in a high-level view. None of the biblical episodes recounted in this book contain much of the gritty detail that the biblical accounts do, or even as much detail as most children's Bible stories do. And, as with nearly all children's Bible stories, there are many "chapters" of the story not mentioned here, which is likely just a function of overall length limitations from the publishers as well as DeYoung's wish not to just replicate in different format other recent works of this genre. Therefore, for a family to get the most benefit from this book, try reading through the Jesus Storybook Bible (by Sally Lloyd-Jones) and/or the Big Picture Story Bible (by David R. Helm) with your children first, and then reading this next. DeYoung traces the theme of human sinfulness and God working out his great promises of redemption ultimately coming to fulfillment and completion in Jesus Christ. But to maximize the benefit from and appreciation of this book, it is best to have more detailed versions of the story firmly in mind first. All that said, for what it is - a tracing of the theme of human sinfulness and God's great promised salvation through Christ - and done in a way that is not only accessible to children but beautifully executed in both word and image, this is a great additional book to work through as a family, along with fuller versions of the story of redemption. The final word I leave to my four children (ranging in age from 4.5 to 11 at the time of our initial two readings): all of them love it. On the title page of each chapter, there are several symbolic pictures which foreshadow what the chapter is about and they love pointing out the meaning of each one. Also, the kids pointed out that Jesus's face is never shown and his redemptive work is represented without ever showing a visual image of his person - they liked that. And my wife and I were a bit surprised that it was repeatedly our 4.5 year old who wanted to keep reading the next chapter (well, they all did but she was most insistent). We thought at first that the symbolic nature of some of the art along with the lack of granular story-episode detail would make it appeal more to our older children (who also really like it), but it has no less appeal for our youngest. I highly recommend this as a valuable addition to any family's library or as an additional resource for family worship time.

Wonderful book. I bought it to read to my students who enjoyed it and now my own little one has grown to the age to enjoy it. Nice colours to catch the attention of even infants and the story is a good message for growing children.

Mais quel magnifique livre ! Et quelle façon de relier tous les points pour dessiner l'Évangile ! Ce livre ne prend pas les enfants pour des abrutis, et ça fait du bien. Les illustrations de Dan Clark sont juste à tomber.