Book Review by Barbara Robinson, Dayton Monthly Meeting, Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting

Dayton Monthly Meeting youth really had fun with this curriculum. It’s hard to teach Quaker youth about Jesus, but this book was very helpful. Using this curriculum, we were able to involve our youngest child (4 years) as well as our oldest children (12 years). We read the stories in the Bible and from the text. The stories were clearly laid out with lots of suggestions to help the teacher prepare and teach the lesson. We used a map and other pictures in conjunction with the curriculum to help the children get a clearer picture of what life was like in Jesus’ day. This guide also gave a variety of activity ideas which really helped the children understand the lessons. We used role play to teach the children about cheating, care and compassion, forgiveness and love, answering God’s call, and Jesus’ life as a healer, teacher and spiritual leader. Our youth created a “news story” video, interviewing several different people who had met Jesus (the disciples, the wedding guests at Cana, people who had been healed…). Together, we painted scenery, gathered props, created costumes, and helped each other act out the scripts for the interviews they had written. When the video was finished, we had a cast party and showed it to the adults of the Meeting. I don’t think the children who participated in the making of the video will ever forget the fun they had and the lessons they learned.