Jonah and Mary (book review)

A few years ago, Munchkin (who turns 12 this week) loved to read. Recently he’s been exploring other ways of expressing himself and finding his interests though. He currently enjoys drawing maps from memory. Through these other explorations, I don’t want him to completely abandon reading, though, so when the opportunity to review a book or two comes up, I always ask him if he’s interested. When it came to Who was Jonah? and Who was Mary, Mother of Jesus? from Barbour Publishing he said that he was definitely interested, so I’m going to leave the rest of this post to him.

Who was Jonah?

This book is about 80 pages and the type is fairly large, so it was easy to read. As you might guess from the title, it is a biography of the Biblical Jonah. It starts right before God tells him to go to Nineveh. It drops you right into the action, and follows the same action as is in the Bible right up until the end. It has Bible verses to help support what the author is saying. 

This book was pretty good. I found it fun to read. I’ve read another book by this author (Matt Koceich) before, and I really liked it, so I thought I would like this one too and I was right. I really like biographies, so this was a good book for me.

Who was Mary, Mother of Jesus?

This book was a very similar length and format to Jonah, but it’s all about Mary. It starts by explaining Mary’s special role in history, including the prophecy from Isaiah 7. The “real” story starts in chapter 2, where Mr. Koceich talks about the census and birth of Jesus. Each chapter takes a memorable Bible story (the wise men, 12 year old Jesus at the temple, the wedding in Cana, Jesus’s crucifixion) and explains Mary’s role in each. Like the Jonah book, it gives Bible verse references throughout to support what is being said.

I liked this book too. It was interesting to read familiar stories from a slightly different point of view. It wasn’t quite as fun as Jonah, but I still enjoyed it a lot. 

What Both Books had in Common 

In each book, there were little bits of extra information sprinkled throughout in gray boxes labeled “Clues.” These were mostly things that show God working in the life of both the subject of the book and how we can apply that today. For example, in Mary, one of the Clues says

Mary’s song reminds us to always praise God, for He is worthy. God gives us grace. He fills our hearts and always keeps His promises.

At the end of the main part of the book are “Power-Ups.” These are short (2 page) devotions based on the life of the person whose book it is. Each one includes a memory verse. 

Other Stuff

These two books are part of a series called Kingdom Files. So far, there are 5 books in the series: the two I reviewed, Jesus, David, and Esther. Each one is $4.99. I would like to read them all at some point.

Blessings,

ladybug-signature-3 copy

 

 

and Munchkin 

Kingdom Files {Barbour Publishing Reviews}
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