Big Red Children's Bible

This presentation of the International Children’s Bible makes use of computer-generated images to drag God’s Word into the 21st century. Like most children’s Bible it’s appended with reading tools.

I like the pictures. They’re pretty cool, and at regular intervals throughout the Bible…but pretty much everyone looks like a white American citizen (except for that one wise man of course).

I like one of the appendices which shows you where to find a bunch of popular Bible stories, but I’m afraid I fail to see the point of the Bible dictionary – the translation’s intended for kids in grade 3 so I’m not sure they’d be that up for trawling through that.

In terms of the translation, I am a fan. It’s in straightforward language and grammar but is faithful to the original text and is a true translation rather than a paraphrase. Something else I liked was that there aren’t any titles added into the text – instead, the titles are in the header so as a reader the words aren’t broken up. I really hope other publishers pick up on this! The footnotes confused me a bit at first so if you’re a parent I’d encourage you to get familiar with them in case of questions.

I got this book for free from booksneeze.com. I’m not required to give a positive review.

Posh & Becks

There were some photos this morning in the paper that Posh & Becks had done of them kissing. Bit of a blatant publicity stunt but fair enough, their commodity is fame and they’ve not been in the papers for a while so good for them.

But it got me thinking: I like Posh and Becks. There are a couple of reasons why:

• Their kids’ names aren’t that ridiculous. Slightly quirky, but not as bad as plenty of others. Audio Science.
• They waited until they were married before they had kids. Good for them.
• They’re obviously very happy to make sacrifices for one another. Let’s be honest, David joining L.A. Galaxy wasn’t the smartest career move but I bet he knew it would make his wife happy. Good boy.
• They didn’t allow rumours to affect them. David was accused of doing something similar than Wayne Rooney has been but at the end of the day Victoria’s response was pretty much: ‘I don’t think he did it.’ Compare that to the reaction of the whole world to Rooney’s allegations.

Phil Brown said that we shouldn’t go spreading rumours because on this occasion it looks like the whole family is being pulled apart. True, but it’s not just about that. Posh and Becks have proven themselves willing and able to stand firm in the face of attack, and I like that.