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We sat down with the author and the illustrator of God’s Big Promises Bible Storybook for an inside scoop into the creation of the book!
Carl Laferton, author of the beloved and bestselling The Garden, the Curtain and the Cross, spent tireless hours crafting each of the 92 Bible stories found in the storybook. His goal is to teach little ones not only that the Bible is one big, cohesive story, but also that it tells the story of a trustworthy God who makes and keeps good promises. Inside the storybook, you’ll find five “Promise Paths” that walk kids through the stories in the Bible where God makes, and then keeps, five different types of promise.
Jennifer Davison, the master illustrator behind the Very Best Bible Stories, carefully crafted each illustration in the storybook to be biblically faithful, historically accurate, ethnically diverse, creative and fun for little eyes.
Keep reading for a dive into the making of this wonderful Bible storybook.
Jen: My favourite hero in the Bible is probably Deborah. I love that story of a powerful woman of God—that prophetess who hears from God and has such conviction in what she hears that she can lead Barak and his whole army to victory. And when I was illustrating that story for God's Big Promises Bible Storybook, I just wanted to convey the drama in those events and her confidence in God that he was going to lead them to victory.
Carl: One of my heroes in the Bible is Esther. She was pretty much on her own and yet she was so brave and risk-taking in representing God's people when it could have cost her life. And of course she's pointing to Jesus in that. But I also loved the way Jen illustrated it in God's Big Promises Bible Storybook—the way the image captured Esther’s beauty, but also her strength, and that shines through the pages.
Carl: There are 92 individual stories in God's Big Promises Bible Storybook. And my prayer is that kids will get to know those stories, but more than that, that they'll get to know that it's one big story. And what I dream of for little kids—2, 3, 4, 5, 6 year olds—is just knowing that God always keeps his promises, that that is what the Bible teaches us about him, and therefore, that they can trust him every day and on into eternity because he still always keeps his promises. That's my heart for this kids’ storybook Bible.
Jen: It was while working on God's Big Promises Bible Storybook that I learned the family line, especially in the Old Testament. I just thought it was very interesting, drawing Jacob and then doing that family line. Seeing how it all connects, you just see the overall picture. I'd never really gotten my head around that until I was actually illustrating each story for the Bible.
Carl: One of the things that really struck me is just how careful Jen and the art director were, and I was too. The care that we ended up taking back and forth, back and forth, just to make sure that as kids were reading, it's not just that the words are faithful to the stories in the scriptures, but the illustrations as well. I really learned that you have to be super careful, but it really pays off in the final product.
Carl: I think the stories I most enjoyed writing are the Abraham narrative, because this is a Bible that's based, like the real Bible is, on the idea of promise—God making and keeping promises and exciting kids that God always keeps his promises. And that Abraham narrative is where you get those foundational promises.
I really enjoyed writing about those and the stars in the sky that Abraham is told to count because his descendants are going to be as numerous as that. And then to track that through and think that kids are going to see that tracking through the pages of God's Big Promises Bible Storybook and seeing how God doesn't just make promises, but keeps his promises. So I think that was the story where I really began to think, oh, this is a super exciting way to get kids stuck into a Bible storybook.
Jen: On the Creation page I'm picturing the tiger because he's so striking. That was fun. Just adding in all the little animals all around that creation. Lots of scope to play with them. And the underwater page as well.
Carl: Speaking of underwater, I love the massive fish, whale, whatever it is, in the Jonah story. You've got tiny Jonah and this massive fish, and then you see Jonah in the belly of the fish on the next page and then spat out on the next one. And I just think it's really cool the way that that sort of flows and gives a sense of what it must have been like for Jonah to go deep, deep down.
So yeah, there's animals all the way through. I love the one of Jesus with the sheep, where it's the story of him talking about himself as the good shepherd. And I think kids are just gonna be really drawn in by that illustration to appreciate who Jesus is for them by faith.
Jen: The hardest story to illustrate I think might have been Moses. Just to convey that amount of people and the crossing of the sea, and then having a few closeups of Moses himself. That was a bit of a challenge, that whole story.
Carl: Moses too, actually. I think it was the golden calf because that's introducing the idea of idolatry. We are introducing it to three and four year olds, and just, how do you do that? And it took me ages, and then in the end I decided to call the golden calf and future idols through Israel's history a “not God”, because it's like a God, but it's completely not the real God. And so, it took me ages to get to that point of thinking that's what I'm gonna call the golden calf—not God. And then I was able to play that out through the rest of the Bible, but it took a lot of blank paper time to get to realising that that's how we could use language to help kids understand what an idol is.
You can find more information about God’s Big Promises Bible Storybook, as well as free resources for parents, schools and churches, at godsbigpromises.com
92 foundational Bible stories, faithfully told and beautifully illustrated, which point to the one big story of the Bible—God making and keeping his promises.
Avery is our Marketing Engagement Specialist. She manages our global social media channels and works alongside authors to help share about their books. You can often find her sharing stories in our bookstore at conferences.
