Title: Found – Psalm 23
Author: Sally Lloyd-Jones
Illustrator: Jago
Published by: Zonder Kids
Price: £5.95 at WHSmith £6.99 on Amazon
Useful for: people age 2+
Best bit: Simple, beautiful words and stunning images communicating God’s love for you
Worst bit: As a board books it’s brilliant for young children, but might make older children feel it’s not for them. A non-board book version would be awesome!
More:
This books is stunning! The words, the pictures and the quality of the board book all communicate a message of God’s awesome love.
You may recognise both Sally’s writing and Jago’s artwork from popular Jesus Storybook Bible, although there are far less words per page in this book, and the pictures are full page.
In this beautiful board book, Sally has composed a re-telling of Psalm 23, and it’s a brilliantly written version which makes it very accessible for young children (and everyone else!).
She has simplified the Psalm, but without removing any of it’s meaning, for example:
God is my Shepherd.
And I am his little lamb.
He feeds me.
He guides me.
He looks after me. I have everything I need.
Inside my heart is very quiet.
As quiet as lying still in soft green grass in a meadow by a stream.
If you’re like me, you’ll wonder how she addresses the verses about the ‘valley of the shadow of death’. Here’s how:
“Even when I walk through the dark, scary, lonely places… (picture of a lamb in a dark shadowy place)
I won’t be afraid.
Because me Shepherd knows where I am.
He is here with me.”
(picture of the sun shining through a cloud and the shepherd running to the lamb.)
The illustrations by Jago are stunning and communicate so much love! This is so important in children’s books, as we absorb so much meaning (and therefore theology) through the pictures. I love how your could almost read this book without the words (although the word are amazing too!).
It would make the perfect gift for a child age 2-5 years old to help them keep discovering God’s “Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreakable, Always and Forever Love”, as Sally puts it!
I bought it as a gift for my daughter for her Baptism birthday, and it would be fab as a gift for Easter, Baptism, Dedication or a birthday!
It would also make a fabulous way to ‘study’ or meditate on the Psalm as a mixed age group, giving visual learners as superb way in to the Psalm.
My only disappointment is that it’s only available as a board book, as this might make some readers feel it is too young for them, which is definitely isn’t! If you’ve read The Jesus Bible Storybook, you’ll know how Sally’s writing (and Jago’s pictures) are fabulous however old you are!