The Story Of Christmas

The Story of Christmas, retold by Gwen Ellis, is an easy-to-read children's book about the birth of Christ and the events surrounding it.

From the website: ...this book begins with the birth of John the Baptist. Next comes the angel appearing first to Mary, then to Joseph, the trip to Bethlehem, the birth of Jesus, the angel’s announcement to the shepherds, the wise men and their gifts, fleeing to Egypt, and at last heading home to Nazareth. The “Can You Retell the Story” activity at the end of the book is a fun way for children to learn to tell the story themselves.

There are 10 stories in the book and each is based on verses from the Bible such as An Angel's Message (Luke 1:5-20), A Baby Named John (Luke 1:57-66), Joseph Marries Mary (Matthew 1:18-25). Each story covers two pages (with large illustrations, so it really amounts to two paragraphs) which is great for kids' short attention spans. At the end of each story there is a question to discuss with your child to get them thinking about the passage they just read and encourage dialogue between you and your child. A couple of the questions are The name Jesus means "savior." What does a savior do? and Who was the first to hear about baby Jesus? They are easy enough questions for a child to reflect on.

At the very end of the book there are 4 pages of pictures from the book ... the pictures are all out of order. You can have your child point to the pictures to retell the story in the correct order. I like this addition to the book since I know they teach this in Kindergarten...retelling stories they read and putting pictures in the correct order of how things happen; so this is something useful I can use with Kayla to help reinforce those skills she's learning.

The book also comes with a DVD of 6 short stories from Jesus' life. The narration was done in a calm and soothing voice - not loud and distracting like a lot of children's shows are. It held both Kayla's and Lucas's interest throughout.

A hardcover book with a DVD for $10.99 is pretty great for a Christmas gift for young children to learn more about Jesus and "the Christmas story."

"This is a Mama Buzz review. The product was provided by Thomas Nelson for this review."