We cannot properly read illustrated Bible story books to our children, unless we have read and are familiar with the Bible ourselves.
When it comes to children's Bible stories books, I have found it's really hard to find books that I feel accurately convey the full truth of God's Word. Of course, you could always just read the Bible. Nevertheless... :) Noah's ark, for example. Is there any more popular story we find told in children's books? With good reason--it holds great significance in Christian doctrine and is a fantastical story that apart from God (who was very much involved in the process), it would have been impossible. Then of course David and Goliath, along with Adam and Eve
It's important when reading these books, to be prepared to fill in the gaps and correct error in them in order to bring them up to a higher standard of Scripture, I think. Sometimes, it may require crossing things out and rewriting something (which I have actually done). These books are made for our children, and generally that means attention spans can be short. The writers and publishers know this of course, and they are made with this in mind. I understand the attempt to be brief and summarize Scripture for this purpose, so I don't mean to be overly harsh. However, it seems crucial details are often omitted, which give the "stories" their real meaning. What you are left with is a nearly meaningless story of some guys that did some stuff because God told them to and it was neat. Maybe that's the intention of the books, though. Maybe they are just meant to start the conversation. Anyways, I think with Noah's Ark probably more than any other story, important truths are misconstrued and others just outright left out.
On page one it says, "Long ago there was a man named Noah. Noah was a good man who obeyed God. One day God told Noah to build a huge boat because a huge flood was coming".
So first off, was Noah good? I think it is a direct contradiction of what we are told, in that there are "none good, no, not one". And Jesus also confirmed, "Only God is good". We are only on page one, and not doing so... good.
So a flood is coming and Noah is supposed to build a big boat. The book never goes on to touch on why the flood was coming. Again, so maybe that's our part as the adult reader. But, it's an important part. As it is the book just says a flood was coming so God told Noah to build a boat and people laughed at Noah because of it. The reason for the flood is of grave (no pun intended) importance. It just seems a flood was coming (not really sure why God didn't just stop the flood) so God decided to have Noah build a big (kind of small actually) boat. Noah was good, so he did it. Ahem... okay, so, it goes on and I'm just going to skip to the end.
The book concludes as you might expect, with the relatively tiny boat and giant animals exiting under a rainbow. I'm not really sure this exaggerated illustration of a tiny boat with giant animals sticking their heads out of the roof is helpful. Is that the image the Bible portrays? If it is not, then is it the image we should portray to our children? It only plays on the one of many misconceptions perpetuated among scoffers that there is no way there would be room enough on that tiny boat.
All this is to say that while these children's books aren't totally worthless, without an adult who knows their Bible reading and adding to it, they probably wouldn't be far off from that. We should use wisdom in purchasing them, and in reading them to our children. Where they inevitably fall short of Biblical truth, we need to be there to fill in the gaps. Or, just read the Bible :)
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