How do I find meaningful books for little kids?

July 18, 2016

Article By: Generations

Chad Roach: So one of the biggest problems that my wife and I face with young children and our little guy, is we can't find good books. There are no good books. You can't go onto Amazon or into your average book store and find good books for little ones. It's been a trick. We've tried to ask as many people as we can, and finding a good book for a little one...



Daniel Craig: I know what you mean.

Chad Roach: Not easy.

Daniel Craig: When I'm trying to read a story to my niece or my nephews, I pull open these books and it's like this story that is probably dumbing down their maturity level as we read it. And there's just not the kind of inspiration that you can find with some of the older books.

Kevin Swanson: And that's one of the reasons we went out there and we said, "Okay, what's out there? Let's pull together as many resources as we can that can be very, very good for parents, for families that want to raise their children and nurture, and the admonition of the Lord."

Chad Roach: From the very, very beginning.

Kevin Swanson: Yeah, from the beginning. And we found many, many samples, and we sifted through all of them and we pulled together the very best of the children's books out there. There's some good stuff out there, but you've got to dig, you've got to look. And so that's what our ministry has done, and we've pulled together the Susan Hunt books, Sammy and His Shepherd, the Noah book...

Daniel Craig: By Mark Ludy.

Kevin Swanson: Beautiful example of a wordless picture book. Some of the best pictures of Noah and the Ark.

Chad Roach: That's just mesmerizing. I love that book.

Kevin Swanson: It's incredible. And then the series produced by Samantha Carr and Jonathan Edwards, and Christian biographies...

Daniel Craig: There's a bunch of Christian biographies in the series and it kind of breaks those stories down for the youngest ages.

Kevin Swanson: Yeah. And you wanna be sure you're conveying stories that reflect biblical principles, that talk to godly Christian leaders. I mean, true role models. So much of what kids get today, they develop these values, these role models that really have nothing to do with Hebrews 11, or any of the values that God brings out in the word. And so let's start out with some of these great biblical concepts and let's put them into the neatest stories. And of course, you can get hokey stuff too, but what we try to do is find the very best artwork, the very most winsome stories where it really speaks to those three-year-olds and four-year-olds.

Chad Roach: And beautiful books, as well, just excellently done. Just the coolest pictures and the neatest stories. 

Daniel Craig: Because kids are still kids and they look at the pictures.

Chad Roach: They do look at the pictures.

Kevin Swanson: We all do.

Chad Roach: The parents look at the pictures as they read the books, too.

Kevin Swanson: Who does not like this Noah book? I mean, that is unbelievable. Look at that tree he's chopping down. That's gotta be five-foot in diameter, incredible. Here's a dinosaur pulling the cart. You get that? It's amazing. Love it.

Daniel Craig: So I think we have three categories here. We have the fictional stories that are written by men like RC Sproul, and then we have some of the actual discipleship resources, stuff from Susan Hunt and other authors. For example, My ABC Bible Verses. So these are really interesting teaching tools for the youngest ages. And then we also have the biography series for young readers as well. So I think parents can look at the resources on our website and really determine what's the best fit for their particular child. But there's resources in all of those categories that we're offering currently.

Chad Roach: And rather than having to wade through Amazon and trying to find the books that are gonna inspire your kids to be more like David and Paul and the Lord Jesus, rather than Ant-Man, and Superman, and Batman, or Mickey Mouse. Generations, our real heart's desire was to give parents a one-stop place where they can go and find these resources and not have to wade through all of the rest of the stuff out there.

About Generations

The vision of Generations (formerly Generations with Vision) is to pass on the faith to the next generation through the biblical family, discipleship, and education. We equip families and churches around the world through our daily radio programs, discipleship resources, the Christian Curriculum Project, and discipleship events and retreats.

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