I do not know of another book I could recommend as a great book for young readers, an unmatched teaching tool for children’s Bible teachers, and the perfect family devotional book all in one. Grandpa’s Box is all of these and is the best children’s book I have read in years.
An elementary-aged reader will have a difficult time putting this book down. Each of Grandpa’s stories is a “war story” symbolized by some small object from his box. In the first chapter Grandpa tells his grandchildren, Marc and Amy, that he is in the middle of a war. “It’s a great and terrible war I’m in. It’s not the kind in which people shoot and stab and blow each other up. Oh, no, it’s much more serious than that…But the great thing about this war is that even though it’s so hard and long and even though the enemy is very powerful, the war is already won.” From Genesis 3 through Revelations, each chapter is a biblically accurate revelation of God in Christ Jesus our conquering King.
I train Sunday school teachers and I will recommend this book to every one of them. The teaching of the Word in the context of spiritual warfare is important as we point the next generation to Christ. Starr Meade never compromises any of the biblical context and is faithful in every chapter to tell the story of redemption. She understands that the Bible is a revelation of God, not a book of stories directing us to some moral or principle for living.
As in her first book, Training Hearts, Teaching Minds, Meade provides a wonderful family devotion guide based on the Shorter Catechism. This book should be read in a family setting, also, so that parents can discuss what each story shows us about God. P&R Publishing’s website (www.prpbooks.com/grandpasbox) has a few discussion questions for each chapter to aid in this book’s use as a family devotional. I own this book. I will use it often as a teacher, but I anticipate wearing off the covers as I read it to my grandchildren.