Review: NIV Kids' Visual Study Bible

NIV Kids' Visual Study Bible, Hardcover, Full Color Interior: Explore the Story of the Bible---People, Places, and History Hardcover – June 6, 2017

• Age Range: 8 - 12 years
• Grade Level: 3 - 7
• Hardcover: 1952 pages
• Publisher: Zonderkidz (June 6, 2017)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0310758602
• ISBN-13: 978-0310758600

This Bible is set up as follows:
Table of Contents 
Preface
The Bible
Table of weights and measures
Infographics index
Maps index
Color Maps

This is a good Bible, with great explanatory notes on almost every page. It has a sturdy hardcover. The pictures, photographs, and graphs are good and helpful, depicting certain fundamental truths carefully.  The notes are especially informed and insightful. They will definitely help readers understand the Bible.

So, if this Bible has all these good things, why am I not really impressed with it as a Bible for kids? It might just be me being picky but what we have here is a marketing failure.

First: The title. The word "kids" implies (at least to me) that the book is for tweens and under. This book is more fit for 13 year olds and over. The title is misleading because one expects a kid-friendly book for littler kids.

Second: "Visual." This Bible has many pictures but it's not really as visual as all that.

Third: the lightness and size of the font. The font is light and small. It should be darker and larger .Even teens will have a problem with this font. The column for the notes should be smaller, and the column where the actual Bible is written should be larger. That might've helped the font issue.

Fourth: A general laziness. If this Bible is to be presented to a child, the design and presentation should have been better. For instance, the preface isn't written for kids. I'm not sure but it might be the same-old same-old  preface . Why? Shouldn't they have gotten a kid-friendly kid-understandable version of that preface?

This leads to my FIFTH complaint: The designers and editors of this book saw the trees, but not the forest. A kid's Bible should have a timeline, several in fact. In the front or back of the Bible, there should be overviews of the Bibles, of the kings, of Israel's history, of the prophets, of the miracles, of the parables. Kids haven't known it all or seen everything; they aren't like us older folks. There really should be more guides to the basics.

Upshot: This book should have been called the TEEN'S STUDY BIBLE. A mere title change and this book would be perfect. Please do not buy this Bible for little kids or for kids with bad eyes.

This book was given to me free of charge in exchange for a fair and honest review.