Chil­dren’s

Green Bible Sto­ries for Children

Tami Lehman-Wilzig; Dura Yael Bern­hard, illus.
  • Review
By – November 7, 2011
Begin­ning with the sto­ry of Cre­ation, accord­ing to our author, the Bible teach­es read­ers to respect the land and con­serve nat­ur­al resources. Sto­ries from the Bible are retold in the author’s own lan­guage, often humor­ous­ly. Titles of sto­ries include: Green­er Pas­tures, Abra­ham and Sus­tain­able Herd­ing; Reduce Reuse Recy­cle, Build­ing the Taber­na­cle; and Every Sev­en Years, a Sab­bath For the Land. Sug­gest­ed kid-direct­ed activ­i­ties fol­low each sto­ry, which can be use­ful, par­tic­u­lar­ly for par­ents and teach­ers who want to help chil­dren car­ry out sim­ple projects to involve them in recog­ni­tion and care of their envi­ron­ment. In some sto­ries, archae­o­log­i­cal or his­tor­i­cal points are also raised. The Noah’s Ark” activ­i­ties focus on bio­di­ver­si­ty in an age-appro­pri­ate fash­ion. Joseph in Egypt” focus­es on cre­at­ing a sur­vival kit includ­ing a clever, hands-on set of direc­tions for pre­serv­ing pick­les. The sto­ry of Joshua in which he com­mands the sun to stand still is a pow­er­ful jump-off to address the use of solar pow­er. The Shmit­tah year, a year­long rest from plant­i­ng, presents the con­cept of sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture, over­crowd­ing, and pre­serv­ing fruits. A nine-page pot­pour­ri fol­lows the sto­ries as a corol­lary, with Jew­ish-cen­tered thoughts on top­ics such as Bal Tash­chit (Don’t Waste or Destroy). The Bib­li­cal con­tent is inter­wo­ven with con­tem­po­rary envi­ron­men­tal goals. Illus­tra­tions assist the read­er in visu­al­iz­ing peo­ple and events from the Bib­li­cal peri­ods and work well with the text. This new book, while inter­est­ing for chil­dren to read alone, can also be use­ful for Tu B’Shevat and Earth Day events. Rec­om­mend­ed for ages 8 – 11.
Shelly Feit has an M.L.S. and a Sixth-year Spe­cial­ist’s Cer­tifi­cate in infor­ma­tion sci­ence. She is the library direc­tor and media spe­cial­ist at the Mori­ah School in Engle­wood, NJ.

Discussion Questions