DVD Review: Read and Share Bible

I was given a DVD to review by the good folks at Thomas Nelson:

It’s part of a series of DVDs that aims to engage pre-schoolers with stories from the Bible.  Overall I’m impressed with this volume, which covers Genesis, up until the point that Jacob wrestles with God; and then episodes from the Gospels. 

The animation, as you can gather from the cover, is simple and representative, while quite warm and engaging.  I like the funny noses… somehow the obvious cartoonish-ness of the animation draws attention to the fact that this is not supposed to be taken as a painstaking re-creation of the historical events, but rather a pathway into the drama of the Bible’s stories.  In this vein, there are ways in which the stories are especially directed toward the young viewers, with the creation account mentioning puppies, the Noah’s ark sequence involving a monkey riding on a deer’s back, and other gently humourous or expanded elements.  Having said that, I think the DVD as a whole does well in being faithful to the stories it tells.  There are no moralising interpretations added onto the stories – they are simply allowed to speak for themselves, which is a good thing from my perspective.

The background instrumental music is non-intrusive and quite fitting.  Different vignettes are narrated by one of two different narrators.  The male narrator has what I would guess is a Boston accent – very clear and understandable for those of us who live in the UK!  The female narrator’s voice is also quite clear and accessible to children.

I have not watched every bit of the bonus features, but this is because our 4yo daughter and 2yo son didn’t like those parts.  They involved material that was largely aimed at parents, showing how the animation was done.  Older children might find this interesting, but it didn’t seem entirely necessary.

One of the drawbacks of simplifying the Bible for children is that inevitably certain things are skipped over, and certain things are crystallised in a way that may need to be unlearned later on in life.  For example, the story of the prodigal son finishes with the return of the prodigal (missing out the climactic interchange with the older brother); and the angels are shown as winged creatures (rather than appearing human) with Gregorian-style singing voices.  I’m not quite sure what to make of this issue: Will my children now picture winged creatures when they hear about angels in the Bible – not realising that the New Testament itself never indicates that this is how they are to be understood?  Will they, in future years, assume that the only point of the “Prodigal Son” parable is that the father welcomed the prodigal?  I think these sorts of things are always going to be issues when we attempt to put something literary into a visual form: There is a loss that occurs when the Bible is made into a DVD… but that doesn’t mean that it’s a worthless enterprise; it simply means that we need to be aware of these drawbacks.

My two children really enjoy watching this DVD, sometimes watching the whole thing (I guess about 40 minutes) twice in one sitting!  So I’m happy to recommend it to people with pre-school age children, and we’ll be looking out for subsequent volumes in the series.