by Ken Ham and Karen Hansel Published by Master Books
My family and I are spending the month of July soaking in God’s creation up close and personal: we’re camping! Which means no internet access where we’re staying. But paper books still work far from civilization (don’t worry, we’ve got a roof and electricity, just we’re out in the boonies).
So, it’s the perfect time to catch up on a kid’s creation book we’ve had in our home library since Grandma picked it up at the Creation Museum over a year ago.
I knew from watching my kids interact with this book that it was engaging for the young audience it’s designed for, but it was just a little too, well, childish to have caught my eye before.
It is “childish” if that means simple, colorful, and straightforward (You can check out the style for yourself on Amazon).
- The illustrations are bright and larger than life as you might expect of a story about a monkey and his Triceratops friend following a National Park ranger around.
- The concepts presented are stated matter-of-fact-ly with no attempt to explain why others don’t see things the way creationists do.
- There are just enough facts presented to show why picturing “a lot of water and a little time” makes sense of the geological evidence we can see today.
- Young children will not be overwhelmed by the science, rather, they will get a taste of what creation science helps us to picture.
Master Books says the book is for kids in the 9-12 age range. This could be true if you’ve got kids who are rough on books or are slow readers. The plot line and content are spare and could be read in one or two sittings to a child with the attention span of an average 5-7 year old. It would also work well with an early reader not quite ready for chapter books.
For this age range the content and style are ideal.
I found the story believable and the main character, Charlie the monkey, endearing. In fact, the book gives the impression it will be the first of a series, so I’m looking forward to seeing what he gets up to at the next place they visit.
The best part, in my family’s opinion, is the mini notebooks attached to several pages showing Charlie’s thoughts about what he’s learning. Any time you have something “real” inside a flat book it’s cool, and these are well done. School-lined paper covered in doodles and legible block letters present the flood story, picture mountain goats on a level with brachiopods, and who Charlie thinks is stealing his snacks.
As a first introduction to creation science for the littles, this book is great. Hopefully, it will leave them and their families hungry for more!
Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. I John 4:4
At the moment Answers in Genesis isn’t carrying the book online, so I can’t add an affiliate link. You can buy it cheap from Christian Book Distributors, or support Eric Hovind’s Creation Today ministry for an extra two dollars.
