TLDR: The Garden Children’s Bible based on the animated series by award-winning animator Butch Hartman is now available.
Many people will recognize Butch Hartman’s name, but even those who don’t will likely recognize his work, such as The Fairly OddParents, Danny Phantom, and T.U.F.F. Puppy on Nickelodeon. Butch is an animator, writer, producer, and voice actor known for these shows and many more. One of Butch’s recent projects is The Garden Cartoon, a Christ-centered children’s cartoon that teaches kids the gospel through the exploits of Lenny the Lion and Lucy the Lamb.
Butch and our team at Thomas Nelson Bibles partnered to publish The Garden Children’s Bible. One of the main features of this Bible is five full-color comics strips of Lenny and Lucy being sent out on adventures by The Boss (God), who teaches them lessons from His Word along the way.
Targeting 6- to 10-year olds, The Garden Children’s Bible also includes an introduction for each book of the Bible, 300 character callouts of Lenny, Lucy, and “The Boss,” Bible learning lists, a topical index and dictionary, lists of Jesus’ miracles and parables, and 50 Scripture-based prayers.
The Garden Children’s Bible includes the International Children’s Bible (ICB) text. If you aren’t familiar with the ICB, it’s not a paraphrase for kids. Rather, it’s a translation developed from the Greek and Hebrew languages written on a third grade reading level.
One of my favorite verses to use to gauge a translation is 2 Corinthians 5:21 because it’s such an important verse, but it can be somewhat harder to understand.
Here it is in a few “adult” translations:
For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
NKJV1
God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God.
NET2
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
NIV3
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin in our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
NASB4
And here it is in the ICB:
Christ had no sin. But God made him become sin. God did this for us so that in Christ we could become right with God.
ICB5
As you can see, the ICB translators did a great job of making it clear that Jesus was sinless, that he became sin, and that we become right with God through him. Sure, there are still some challenging concepts there, but they have been made as approachable for kids as possible without watering down truth.
That translation paired with the engaging artwork in The Children’s Bible and the gospel message undergirding it should make this a great Bible for kids and families.
- Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ↩︎
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- THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. ↩︎
- New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved. ↩︎
- The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. ↩︎
brian dembowczyk 