Young Women of Faith Bible, NIV

Zondervan provided me with a free copy of this book for reviewing purposes.  All opinions are my own.  No other compensation was received.

The Young Woman of Faith Bible is perfect for the young lady that is not quite a woman, but definitely NOT a little girl.  She is growing in God's Word and has a style all her own.  I was excited to get this, my daughter was a bit hesitant.  She thought it might be too pink.  When it arrived, she was happy with the initial look of it and was eager to flip through it and get to using it.

Inside, there are many cool features that make this a perfect Bible for young ladies.  You can see many of those features here, but I would like to highlight a couple that I thought we particularly sweet!

First, if you have the Women of Faith Bible, the weekly studies and some of the side notes in the Young Women of Faith Bible are linked with this Bible.  This gives the opportunity of Mother and Daughter Studying the Word together.  This could be such a sweet time together and sounds AMAZING!  I wish I would have known that before receiving this Bible...it would have been fun to open up the Word with my beautiful girl.

Next, I LOVE the journal prompts in this Bible...you read a passage of Scripture and then it asks you to do something, like based on Ezekiel 10, draw a picture of what you think a cherub looks like or from Luke 17, a prompt asking your daughter to make a list of people she feels God is asking her to thank and making cards for them.  This teaches our girls to read and apply what they have read in the Scripture, making them Do-ers of the Word!  My girl thought these we fun!

The last thing I will talk about are the side notes.  These explain some passages and define terms and also connect dots between things that happened in the Old Testament to things that happen in the new.  I found these notes to be helpful.

The Young Women of Faith Bible is an NIV Bible, which I appreciate for my children for two reasons.  First, it is the version used by Bible Study Fellowship, which we attend, and that makes completing lessons a little easier for my children.  Second, it is a version that is easy to read and understand, using language and terms children are pretty familiar with. If you are looking for a Bible that is a little more grown up for your tween girl, I highly recommend that you look at the Young Women of Faith Bible from Zondervan.

The Jesus Bible, NIV

Zondervan provided me with a free copy of this book for reviewing purposes.

Discover Jesus in Every Book of the Bible...now that totally piqued my interest.  The more I study the Bible, the more I see Him in every book, but I wanted my children to see Him too.  As soon as I received this, I started flipping through the pages to see what it said.  I was not disappointed with this Bible.  I am not going to go in detail about every feature of this Bible, but you can read what the publisher has to say about it here .

The main things I want to focus on are the Devotions and Hints of the Savior/Jesus Revealed portions, as I feel like these are unique features of a children's Bible.

First, the Devotions...This Bible has 365 devotions scattered throughout the text of the Bible.  There is an index/check off sheet in the back of the Bible so that your child can pick and choose or just go straight down the list and keep track of what they have done or where they are in the list.  I love how easy it is to keep track of this and gives you many options for using the devotions depending on what your family currently does.  You can do them daily, on select days or just here and there.  We go to Bible Study Fellowship from September through May, so we plan to use these in the summer, to keep up a daily study habit.  I would recommend using pencil on list in the back though so that you don't end up with a BIG mess of checks after a couple of years!  They might be ready for a new Bible by then though.\

My favorite part of this Bible is the Hints of the Savior/Jesus Revealed portions.  Throughout the text, there are small boxes that say Hints of the Savior (Old Testament) or Jesus Revealed (New Testament) and something to look at and refer to...let me give you a couple of examples of what I mean.

Hints of the Savior: Exodus 3:14 Jesus would be the great I AM.  Turn to John 8:58 to see the fulfillment.   When you go to read John 8:58, you see Jesus Revealed: John 8:58 Jesus is the great I AM.   This was prophesied in Exodus 3:14.

Hints of the Savior:Zechariah 11:12-13 Jesus would be betrayed for thirty pieces of silver.  Turn to Matthew 26:15 to see the fulfillment.
In Matthew 26:15 Jesus Revealed: Jesus was betrayed for thirty pieces of silver.  This was prophesied in Zechariah 11:12-13.

I love that it matches up the prophecy with the fulfillment and really gets our children seeing that the entire Bible is all about Jesus and it is all relevant and profitable for us today.   Just in case you are wondering, there is a master list of these pairings in the back as well, so they are easy to find and reference.

While I  personally prefer the NAS version of the Bible, I like the NIV for my children for a couple of reasons.  First it is the version they use in Bible Study Fellowship, so it is easy for my children to complete their lessons.  Second, it is easy for them to read and understand.

  Each book of the Bible has an introduction that gives some basic information that is helpful to know as you read, such as who wrote the book, what do we learn about God in this book, and who are the key people in this book.  I really liked these pages as well as it give a basic survey of what you will see as you read through the Word.

The book itself is a good size and feels solid.  I don't think the binding will be falling off any time soon.  There are fantastic maps and few color inserts that are interesting to read. Again, there are many more things I could share, but it is all outlined well by the publisher.  This is an excellent Bible for children.  It is suggested for ages 9-12, but I think younger children would like it as well...maybe from 7 and up.  I think that the print size is good for confident readers, but it might be a little small for beginning readers.