Book Review

100 Bible Stories 100 Bible Songs, written by Stephen Elkins and illustrated by Tim O'Conner is a delightful children's book that I would recommend for children 4 and under.
As the title suggests, this book has 100 different Bible stories or Biblical principles from both the Old and New Testament. There are 2 cds that accompany the book and there is a song that matches each story.

The layout of each Bible story is impressive. Each story is titled and gives the Biblical reference for the story. In the New Testament stories it references each of the Gospels that the story comes from. I really like this feature, more on that in a moment.
The layout also includes the title of the song that matches with the story, a colorful and detailed illustration or two and a three sentence run down of the lesson from each story.

This book reads like a devotional book for young children. It is in no way a Children's Bible, and what I LOVE about them referencing the scripture is that it sets it up for a very easy devotional time for children.
The scripture passage can be read straight from the Bible (they only give the reference, so you need to look up the actual passage in your own Bible.)
The short story from 100 Bible Stories 100 Bible Songs reiterates in a very simple way what the scriptures said and the illustrations go along with each story really well.
Finally, there are the three simple sentences that really drive home the point of each story.

If you are super organized you could play the song that matches the story, but I am not that organized. I have played the cds to the boys and once we have learned them all I can see us singing the matching song when we read the story, but I do not ever see myself going through the effort of playing the one song from the cd when we read the story.
I'm just being honest folks! It's cute in theory, but would be too much work.

The one warning I would give with this book is that in simplifying the stories for children, the stories and lessons were sometimes too simplified. Which is another reason why I love the idea of the references being highlighted on each page - you can go straight to the scriptures and read from there first.

My only other 'complaint' is that the first cd had the wrong song titles for the song playing when I was looking through the titles in my Media Player. The songs match the index in the book and the label on the cd, it is just in the Media Player they are labeled incorrectly.

I was impressed with the book and the boys have both enjoyed listening to the stories and looking at the pictures and Judah has already started singing some new songs he has learned from the CD.