Dr. Seuss’ Bible

In Dad School, I’m in a process of teaching my son both how to read and to understand how we got the Bible. One recent trip I purchased Dr. Seuss’ “The BIG Green Book of Beginner Books” and my five year old is loving the funny stories it contains that originally were published books in their own right, but now, are compiled in this single thick green book. Since we are currently practicing pointing out the letters of words and sounding them out, I decided the title of the book would be our goal last night since it provided a review of “BIG” (he just learned that a few days ago in Go, Dog Go!”) and a review of plural with the occurrence of “Book” and “Books” both being in the title.
Then it struck me! Here I was helping him sound out a “Book of Books” which is exactly what the Bible is! The cover even shows little pictures of the “books within this book!” My heart skipped a beat! I had to force myself to hold off on the spiritual application and stick to the reading lesson first. But once he had mastered the title, I first explained with this “Big Green Book of Books” how it was a collection of books that once were separate and why the publisher has compiled them and we talked about why that was helpful – for carrying around for example. We talked about how they chose which books to put together: they were all “Beginner” books, books to help young kids learn to read, and (he noted) they were all funny stories!

Then I got a Bible out and said, “Did you know the BIble is a ‘Book of Books’?” We talked about how the Big Green Book of Books had six books in it, and had him guess how many were in the Bible. He guessed 100! He was close. 66 is the answer. We talked a little about how they were chosen. They also have the same author, God. And the same purpose, to help people know how to live life. And while they might not be funny, they are helpful and are our guide for life. The word Bible actually means “Books” because it isn’t one book, but many book put together, just like this Big Green Book we are reading.

I think for the first time he understands the basic structure of the Bible, thanks to Dr. Seuss’ “Book of Books.”

It might be worth picking up the Big Green Book of Beginner Books as an object lesson. It is a great book on its on merit besides the object lesson it provides.

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2 Comments:

  1. Love the application. Isn’t parenting great! :)

  2. I love Dr. Seuss. I used to have a couple of Dr. Seuss websites way back in the day. Thanks for the great idea. You should check out the Gospel According to Dr. Seuss. I haven’t read it in a while, but it was interesting. Take care!

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