Bible Review: The Kids’ Devotional Bible NIrV

Kids’ Devotional Bible, NIrV.  Zonderkidz, 2006, 1664 pages.

Reading Level: Middle grades, ages 8-10

Recommended for: ages 6-10

Bottom Line: The Kids’ Devotional Bible is one of the better Bibles available in the easy-reader NIrV translation, though it could be more visually appealing.

The New International Readers’ Version (NIrV) is a scaled down NIV for early readers.  For more about this translation, go here and scroll down.

The 8-10 point font and easy verse numberings make this a better introduction to Bible reading than some of the trendier editions of the NIrV, and I like that there’s no distracting text clutter.  Half-page introductions give a brief overview of each book, and short quizzes at the end of most books help recap what the reader has learned.  The distinctive feature of this Bible is indicated in the title.  There’s a short devotional for each weekday, with a couple of verses to look up and a question to think about.  A one-page devotion for each weekend includes a short reading, with two or three thought questions, simple activities, and a checkbox.  Some have cross-references.  This is a straightforward way of encouraging daily interaction with the word.  Many of these devotions are helpful, but some deal with “tough issues” like divorce or bullying.  Parents should decide for themselves whether their six-to-nine year-olds need to be thinking about (burdened with?) these things. The illustrations are simple line-drawings of kids involved in sports and other everyday activities; hard to see what they have to do with anything.  It’s simple, to the point, and kid-friendly; also geared more toward application than objective Bible knowledge, as a devotional Bible is supposed to be.

Overall Rating: 3.5 (out of 5)

Categories: Middle Grades, Bibles and Bible Stories, Devotionals, Christian

 Cover Image from amazon.com