This Bible is nothing short of revolutionary. I don’t say that lightly, and I rarely come out so strongly in support of anything I review, but the ESV Seek and Find Bible is absolutely incredible.

This is my first personal encounter with the ESV translation, so I don’t have many thoughts to share on that front, save that the ESV is a fairly literal, trustworthy version popular especially amongst those with reformed inclinations. What truly sets this Bible apart though, is the wealth of additional resources included within the pages of the Bible text.

Designed for children in the 5 – 9 bracket, this is an incredibly visual Bible. Along with the full text of the ESV, readers will also find many full color features. I’ve never seen full color illustrations on onion skin – this is really a first, and I’m thankful for advances in printing technology that have made Bibles like this available!

We’ve all owned children’s Bibles that had a few full-color paintings on special pages throughout the Bible – normally FAR away from the Bible text they were meant to illustrate. We’ve also had Bibles with rather dreary 2-dimensional maps of Jerusalem in the time of Jesus (which I could never make sense of), and a map of Paul’s journeys. That is about as far as visual helps went for children ‘back in the day’.

I’m thankful that a new day has dawned for children’s Bibles! There are 130 full page, full color illustrations of important Bible stories found right within the sections of scripture that they are meant to illustrate. Not only that, but there are also Bible stories to go along with those pictures (from 1 -3 pages in length). Those Bible stories are tied to symbols found within the text of the Bible itself to help readers find the actual account in the Bible. These stories also have related Bible verses listed and discussion questions included. How neat is that? This is seriously a fabulous, all-in-one resource Bible for family devotions, you can read the Bible story to your little ones AND the actual Bible text as well for additional depth and meaning.

Even better though is the inclusion of visual helps. There are full color illustrations of tabernacle items, the tabernacle itself, the garb of the high priest, the temple in Solomon’s day, the temple in Jesus’ day, common ship designs, it goes on and on, and is absolutely amazing! I so wish I had a Bible like this as a child; it would have helped me understand the layout of Jerusalem much more if I had a painting of it rendered in a three-dimensional style from overhead. Parents won’t need to have several additional reference titles on hand to provide visuals for their children of the places and items being described, it will be RIGHT THERE in the Bible for them. There are even personal profiles included of the major people of the Bible – full color illustrations of them along with a short biographical blurb.

There are other neat features as well – each book of the Bible comes with a fairly standard summary page – an overview, the author, period the book was written in, theme, major people, purpose of the book, suggested memory verses etc. The neatest feature on this page is a mini-timeline snapshot that places the book historically amongst major points of Bible history. This is another great visual help that pegs main people and events into place in the framework of history. Colorful maps, and a short dictionary are also included, along with incredibly helpful indexes of the illustrations and Bible stories that are included. The text is also footnoted with helpful notes about the meaning of Hebrew names, alternate words, etc. for added meaning.

Even if you aren’t familiar with the ESV Bible, it is VERY worth giving it a try with all of the wonderful features this Bible includes. To be honest, as an adult I really like the diagrams and representations of highly visual items that are described in the text of the Bible. As a fairly new Christian these are so helpful to me because I haven’t been exposed to Christian visuals throughout my entire life. I’m so excited to share these images with my children so that they can better create a mental landscape of biblical events and locations to place biblical events in.

Though designed to be a starter Bible for children that they can grow into – starting with parents reading them the Bible stories, then moving into them reading the ESV text for themselves, I think it really shines as a Bible for family devotional reading. It is very appealing for children as well though, as soon as I shoed my oldest daughter (8) all of the features it included, she was hopping on Amazon to see how much one would cost (she’d like to buy her own copy to add to her personal library).

For families with emerging readers, I still think that the Young Explorer’s NIrV is the best choice because of the simple language and large font. Once a child is reading fluently though, they could certainly tackle this ESV Bible; the language is at a higher level, and the font is smaller, so your child will need a bit more confidence to read this translation of the Bible.

They didn’t make Bibles like this when I was a kid, but I certainly wish they would have! Don’t miss this one folks; it’s a groundbreaking new concept for Bibles!

Reviewed at quiverfullfamily.com ( )

The new ESV Seek and Find Bible is made for children between the ages of 5 and 9, though I think it would be good for older students also. My children are the ages of 3, 4, 7 and 9. I was excited to receive this bible to see how my children would like it. The color illustrations with stories are excellent for this age group of new readers. What makes this bible unique is that the illustrated stories have the bible reference, related bible references, questions for discussion. I thought this easy to read text was great. I liked the fact that it resembles a chain reference bible in that it will have listed beside text other related bible text or stories (these are listed by page numbers that make it easier for children to track down the sited sources). Both of my older children liked the bible and found it easy to navigate. My younger two loved the color illustrations and stories that matched.

Thank you Crossway for this review copy. ( )