Brick Builders Illustrated Bible Review
by Heather Bock
When my boys, ages six and ten, saw the Brick Builders Illustrated Bible being taken out of its box at my kitchen table, the excitement was palpable.
“Is that a Lego Bible??” the younger one asked incredulously.
“No,” interjected the older one. “It looks like Roblox!”
“That’s so cool!” they both said, as they immediately started flipping through the pages. I had to be quick to save one of them from being rifled through, so I could give away one clean copy to one of my readers. My oldest perused it during lunch, and my youngest didn’t let the Book lie until he had gone through all the pages, stopping occasionally to point out an especially cool picture from time to time.
The Brick Builders Illustrated Bible is another children’s storybook Bible, this one with 35 stories, but it’s unique because the pictures are in the style of toy bricks and mini-figures, toys that are immensely popular with children of many ages. I noticed as I read that many of the stories seemed to have been chosen with lovers of building in mind.
Although not many physical building stories exist in this New Testament, the Old Testament includes the stories of God building the creation (yes, the author actually used the word “build” here), Noah building the ark, people building the tower of Babel, the people of Israel helping knock down the well-built wall of Jericho, Samson knocking down a building, Solomon building the temple, Elijah building an altar, and Nebuchadnezzar building a huge golden statue.
Just as building blocks are usually quite colorful, not just the pictures, but the descriptions in this Bible are also filled with color. For example, the story of creation is bursting with color: “In the beginning, there was nothing but darkness—no yellow, no green, and no blue. So God decided to build the earth. He used so many different, exciting colors like orange, red, and purple.” He made a blue sky, turquoise lakes, green ground, green lettuce, yellow peppers, red apples, and golden pears. These colorful descriptions are throughout this Bible. We also read about Mary riding on a small brown donkey, a white dove flies down to Jesus during His baptism, and Simon drops nets into deep blue water and catches purple and pink and orange fish.
As was fairly obvious from my boys’ excitement over the pictures in this Bible, the illustrations are amazing. They truly look like pictures of innumerable plastic mini-figures in block settings, like images from a Lego movie. You want to take the characters off the pages and play with them. My youngest son noticed how even the white color and block style of the cresting Red Sea wave was different from the white of the clouds, to show the different material. The detail is fantastic.
However, I wouldn’t be a good reviewer if I left out a few critiques I have of this Bible. As I was reading the Tower of Babel story to my boys, my oldest and I were startled when it said that the actions of the builders “worried God.” Neither of us could imagine that this was theologically correct. How can God, the maker of everything, the One sovereign over all, be described as being worried about anything–as if He wouldn’t know the outcome? I find this to just be a careless word choice.
We found another such problem with word choice in the story of the wall of Jericho. The author wrote that Jericho was so strong and powerful that no one could go through it or around it. On the next page, of course, the story goes on to describe the Israelites walking around it, seven times in one day, in fact.
Last of all, I find it strange to see Jesus and other men wearing pants in this Bible. The women and some of the men wear dresses or robes, so it’s not that it was hard to draw that type of clothing.
Thankfully, these are small mistakes in the grand scheme of things, and they don’t detract much from the main message. I didn’t find any large problems in this Bible.
Besides the beautiful pictures, colorful descriptions, and unique brick-building angle, I also enjoyed that this Bible has “Building Block” wisdom at the end of each story, a short paragraph giving the main message that easily applies to children. I found as I read them to my six-year-old that they were a good length—easy enough for him to understand and short enough to keep his attention.
My six-year-old enjoys me reading this Bible to him every day, and I am confident that many other brick-building kids out there will feel the same way.
If you are interested in purchasing this Bible—it would make an excellent Christmas present for many a young brick-builder, you can pre-order it on Amazon here. You could also enter my giveaway here, as I will be mailing one new copy to one of my readers in time for Christmas. See below for how to enter.
Brick Builders Illustrated Bible Giveaway
I get to give away one copy of this Bible, and you will receive it by Christmas if you want to give this as a Christmas present! If you would like to enter, subscribe to my blog:
- To subscribe, click the button “follow” in the above right column under my picture and type in your email address. You may have to follow up with an email sent to you to fully subscribe, so check your spam folder if it doesn’t arrive in your inbox.
To earn more entries, or if you’re already following my blog,
- Share this post via social media. Each share to a different social media venue earns you one entry (up to three).
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Giveaways are open to residents of the continental U.S. and Canada who haven’t won a prize from me within a year only.
I will announce the winner by Saturday, December 8, so look for it! If I don’t hear from the winner within a week, I will draw another name. Thank you!
Beginner’s Bible Giveaway Winners
Thank you for all who entered in my Beginner’s Bible giveaway! The winners are Nora Cottrill and Story Teller, author of the timecrawlerblog. Please contact me at heather.bock[at]glimpsesofjesus.com with your address, and I will send your Bible to you. Congratulations! If I can’t reach you by next Saturday, 12/8, I will need to draw a new name.
I shared via Facebook. My boys all love Legos. Thanks for the review.
Tracy Malone
Thank you! It was a fun review to write!
Wish they had offered that when my kids were little!
It’s a lot of fun for them!
Wow, this looks like a fun book. Thank you though for being so thorough on your review. I find that it’s not that things always have to be perfectly theologically correct–just that we have to be ready to discuss them with our younger readers so they understand the truth.
That’s the way I feel about it. I was happy that my 10 year old found most of the mistakes himself. We both pointed them out to my youngest.