Special God

There’s many Christian children’s books out there so what makes this one unique? In the introduction the author Julie Melilli gave some background to why she wrote the book. She mentioned about looking for a book for her adopted daughter that had developmental disabilities and physical differences. In addition she was looking for something that is biblical to read to her daughter while also looking for something with simple vocabulary that for non-native English speaker. Seeing the need for such a resource Julie Melilli decided to write this book.
The book is to be commended for being written in easy-to-understand languages. I really applaud the author’s attempt to write a book for those who have developmental disabilities and are non-native Engligh speaker. Furthermore important Christian terms are printed in bold and followed with a definition of what the term means. This is very helpful and in my reading to my daughters it was a signal for me to ask them to repeat aloud what the word means. Again this was very helpful.
The book was also helpful for young children since it was repetitive. Yet I must also say that at times it felt too repetitive as my daughters at times asked whether I am accidently repeating something that was read earlier! Still one can’t deny the importance of repetition in teaching young children. The book has twenty five chapters in total. As another constructive criticism I must say that sometimes I’m not sure why the chapters are laid out in the order that it was laid out. For example the seventh chapter is on forgiveness. Yet later on there’s a chapter titled “Punishment.” It felt it made more logical sense to have the chapter on punishment before the chapter on forgiveness (though there was a previous chapter titled “Sin Brings Separation” two chapters earlier). I think any subsequent update to this excellent book should consider reorganizing it better. Readers must also be aware that this book isn’t an illustrated book in the sense of showing Bible characters and narrative of events. This was more of a child’s “systematic theology.” The illustrations in the book for each chapters were largely different shapes and colors. Yet at times my daughters asked why was the chapter showing specific pictures and for that I don’t know. I think it can be helpful to have pictures that kind of have to do with the theme of the topic of each respective chapter.
I enjoyed this and my children enjoyed it as well. I rate this 4 out of 5!
NOTE: This book was provided to me free by Crossway and Net Galley without any obligation for a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.

The content of this book is so good. It shares who God is and how to believe in Him. It's written by a mom who adopted a special needs girl and wanted a book that she could developmentally understand, and that would fit her differences, and still point to a Redeemer God who is here for everyone. It's published by Crossway and due out September 30th.

It has words that are bolded and colored to stand out- and when it uses a term, it also defines it in simple language. There are sample quotes from the book throughout this post- that share examples of a sentence from each page. I like the quotes better than the actual pages with many words and paragraphs on each two page chapter. But the book is almost 60 pages with all the great content that is taught. It's designed to be read to a 5-8 year old, and a read to self for 8+. I can see that as appropriate ages.

It definitely is an excellent content resource to explain who God is, sin, separation, eternity, ...

Every page ends with a scripture verse. The illustrations are simple and just shape driven, nothing spectacular but they use color for emphasis, and an occasional person shape.

The concepts are so well explained and the teaching is so good, I can see using this book in our grades 1/2 Sunday School class, as we work to teach them biblical concepts and truths to build on from young on. It's a perfect fit.

As an educator, I love the vocabulary development of biblical terms, I love the way the pages build on the concepts of the page before, the theology is good and the child language is appropriate.

I'm not so sure about the contrast of colors on some pages, at least on the e-version I was reading it was hard to read some of the pages. I'll have to see when I order the hard copy how it looks. The quotes here are similar but maybe a bit busier than most of the book pages.

I'm also not sure about the length of the pages- there are a lot of words on many of the pages, as a read aloud or read together, with such simple images, I'm not sure how well the attention of the children would be. As a read to self, I think it's a better fit, but it's a long book with almost 60 pages. But in Sunday School, we will use one chapter at a time to teach, and might read aloud to review a few other pages. And I think it works well for that. But I'm disappointed it's a 7 by 9 inch book. So not designed for reading aloud to a group.
thankful to partner with netgalley to review.