Children's books for liberal Christians Series. 1

So after this post about how hard it is to find religious books I got several books from the library to try them out.  There were a couple of hits and misses.  I figured I would write a couple up for you.

So first things first. This is the JPS Illustrated Children's Bible by Dr. Ellen Frankel.
This book:

Here's the link from Amazon if you want to take a look:
Okay. Let's keep in mind that I am not a scripture scholar but I do have 2 theology degrees.
I am not an early education expert but I am a parent.

Things I like:

• The language for God is gender neutral. God is God. Not Him, He, Lord etc.  

• The women in the bible are highlighted as very important stories.  This is not a collection of stories of men's accomplishments. The women are even dynamic.  Sarah is seen as jealous, laughing. The pictures of God- albeit neutral have a fairly feminine look if not a tad bit ghostly.

•  The characters looks mostly Middle Eastern.  Most people have dark hair, dark eyes, and relatively brown skin.
• It follows very responsibly the language of scripture.  The creation story is nearly identical -as it is already an exciting and detailed poem while many the less, shall we say less interesting to children, are skipped over.  (Thank you!)
• Finally, this bible is not trying to fit every story into 1 page. The stories are of various lengths. Some have 3 pictures some have 1 some have 6.  A LOT of children's bibles make everything the same length and each gets 1 picture.  I totally do NOT dig that.

All in all, we are digging this. We are thinking about buying it for out little ones!  We shall see.