The Big Picture Interactive Bible Storybook by Anonymous

It's been a roller-coaster ride! Three and a half years ago these stories were just something that I intended sharing with the children and parents at Heaton Baptist Church in Newcastle upon Tyne. What has the experience been like for you seeing the books develop from that initial gathering of children in your local church, to the print books with national distribution and now to digital apps with global distribution? They have certainly come a long way from their origins as a church children’s talk in Heaton Baptist Church. If their first experience of the Bible is a boring one, it will be harder to engage them the next time. Children judge things as being 'boring' or 'not-boring'. By giving children a positive experience of stories in the Bible they will hopefully want to to know more about the Bible and the other stories it contains. The added dimension of the interactivity allows children to immerse themselves in the stories. The stories are written and illustrated in an engaging and entertaining way. How can the Young David Books app instil a love of the Bible in young children? In that sense it is child-directed learning. The story may stay the same, but the way they experience changes with each reading. The child feels empowered because they can determine what happens on each page. On one page a little figure will pop up at a window when you touch it, on another page it won't.

Watching children interact with the apps is very eye opening. The digital enhancements draw on this desire to actively participate in stories. Children at schools where I read the print version of the Young David Books love to take part in the stories by pretending they have their own catapults to fire at an imaginary hairy beast or giant. My daughter draws pictures when I read to her at bedtime. Can you say what benefits you think the conversion of the print books to the digital space brings to the children’s experience of the stories?Ĭhildren love to touch, feel and be actively involved in the stories they read or have read to them. It’s difficult to describe them simply as ‘books’. Your Young David Books have been converted into highly interactive experiences for children.

The Big Picture Interactive Bible Storybook by Anonymous