The Beautiful Garden of Eden by Gary Bower

This bright and beautiful book has been adding some color to our gray winter days! The Beautiful Garden of Eden by Gary Bower is part of his series, The Faith that God Built.

This story uses rhyme and repetition to teach young children the story of the Garden of Eden. I'll be honest, sometimes very repetitive books drive me nuts. I usually cannot wait to get to the end because I'm tired of saying the same thing over and over. The content starts to feel dry. However, this book manages to keep the interest level up by its interesting and fresh wording. It's just fun to read and hear. This book combines difficult and new vocabulary in a really accessible way. Words like upheaval, comely and calamitous. It also has some great verses that are fun to say, my favorite being "This is the fruit, so slurpy and sweet, that God warned his gardeners never to eat." 

The book does a good job of retelling what happens in the story in a simple way. It explains the curse and how it came to be. The last page of the book has a small square at the bottom of the page that says- Galatians 3:13, Christ has rescued us from the curse. I wish that this had been woven into the rhyme or added into the story in some way instead of feeling like an afterthought at the end of the book.   

      

The illustrations by Barbara Chotiner are really bright and cheerful. Her style throughout really ties the book together, The illustrations repeat as the verses repeat. My kids pointed this out immediately, "we already saw this picture mom". I wish that these had been changed up a little with different pictures because it makes the illustrations lose their appeal after seeing them so many times.  

If you're looking for a fun series that introduces Biblical concepts, check out Gary Bower.



I received this book in exchange for my honest review from Tyndale Publishers.