Book Review: A is for Adam ~ Ken & Mally Ham

For a year now, our recently-turned 5-years-old's  favourite bedtime book has been A is for Adam.  We've owned the previous edition of this book for several years and were excited to receive a copy of this new edition to review.  It arrived just in time for Christmas!

First reactions were bittersweet.  We knew from the cover that the illustrations would be different but my daughter (the 5-year-old) was more disappointed than I anticipated.  She was the one of our four children who had favourite illustrations from the original book.  However, after reading the book with her, we are happy to report that the text remains the same and she now requests to be read to from both books!

Ken and Mally Ham bring the message of the gospel to children through this beginning-in-Genesis account.  It's important for people to understand why Jesus had to die on the cross and that begins in Genesis, when He created man in His own image.  A is for Adam takes you through the "7 C's of History", chronologically beginning with Adam having been just created.  It's written in appealing language for children and it is through the reading of A is for Adam that our daughter wanted to find out if her name was written in the Lamb's Book of Life.  Is there any greater joy for a parent than to hear your child's desire and prayer to trust Jesus as their Saviour?

There are a few differences to note between the previous and new editions of A is for Adam.  As far as the illustrations go, I can't say that I prefer one set of cartoons over the other.  However, the new edition is updated and has more traditional vs silly illustrative art.  The previous edition was a hard cover book and the new edition is a table top flip-over book.  Due to the flip-over style, it is a wonderful asset for taking this book beyond the rhyming story.  The previous edition had extra content at the end of the book, but this flip-over book has a lot of discussion points and activities printed on the opposing side of the page facing the parent/teacher.  Similar to the previous edition, there is a good amount of detailed discussion, overview, and review at the end of this book.

For those of you who have the previous edition, you'll be happy to know that you can now download the colouring pages for this book to print/colour.  Although, if you have a child like mine, you'll still be photocopying the colouring pages out of the original book; particularly the "V" page from Noah's flood.  What can I say; they love that page!