The Best Children’s Bibles: 30+ suggestions from Board Book Bibles to Illustrated Study Bibles

I love children’s Bibles! And we have quite a few around here. A good children’s Bible helps children enter into the big story of God making and redeeming the world.

From board book Bibles that you can read in five minutes to full text bibles that would take you 75 hours to read straight through, children’s Bible run the gamut of length and difficulty. Besides the obvious differing needs and attention spans of toddlers and teenagers, children’s Bibles also range in terms of their goals of how many stories and how much theological ground they cover.

For example, I think that Sally Lloyd Jones’ The Jesus Storybook Bible illustrated by Jago is hands down the very best children’s Bible. But with 45 stories and about 30k words, it’s a little long for toddlers and a little short for teenagers. It also does a strong theological voice and perspective.

I have heard most people from a lot of theological backgrounds really like way Sally Lloyd Jones has retold the stories (or at least feel way for about 95% of it), but it’s not a straight translation or paraphrased retelling of the Biblical stories, and of course it doesn’t cover that most of the Biblical stories.

There are also different purposes for Bibles. Is this a Bible your child is going to take to Sunday School and everyone is going to turn to John 3:16 and read it? Then you need a full translation Bible like The Adventure Bible, not a storybook bible. But if you want your children to be reading the Bible more like they read other books, then a graphic novel or a storybook one might work better, like Diary of a Disciple: Luke’s Story or The Action Bible.

Different Children’s Bibles for different kids, at different stages, for different purposes.

But sometimes it can be hard just looking at the name, cover, and page length of a Bible to determine exactly what kind of Bible it is. A 350 page “Children’s Bible” could have 20 words a page and be mostly illustrations, and you could read it in less than 45 minutes. Or it could have 400 words per page with small font and practically no illustrations and it could take you 14 hours to read. So I wanted to share not only Bibles that we have read and loved, (or heard about and want to read as our kids get older), but also broadly speaking how long and what kind of children’s Bibles they are. For this post, I had to guess on the word count, so it is very rough, and if you happen to know a more accurate word count for something let me know in the comments!

A quick note, illustrations for children’s Bibles vary a lot. Some people hate cartoonish illustrations and other people think it’s a fun and whimsical way to engage kids. Personally, my very favorite Bible illustrators are Brian Wildsmith, Tomie de Paola, and Jago.

In this post, I cover 30+ children’s Bibles from board books to illustrated study Bibles, so hopefully you can narrow down the type of Bible you need to a handful of strong choices. Often, it is easy to get a fairly inexpensive used copy in good condition if you don’t mind waiting a few weeks and having someone else’s name in the dedication page. And you’d be surprised how many children’s Bibles some public libraries carry. Happy Bible Reading!

Board Book Bibles

1. Baby’s First Bible: A CarryAlong Treasure  illustrated by Colin and Moira MacLean (20 Pages, less that 1K words). Sweet, mostly rhyming little stories and cut out windows that connect the animals to various stories. A favorite around here, certainly when our kids were small.

2. Baby’s Hug-A-Bible  by Sally Lloyd-Jones and illustrated by Claudine Gevry (24 Pages, less that 1K words). Covered in lamb-like fleece and filled with little rhymes that feel like a hug. The album Big Stories for Little Ones by Rain for Roots set these 10 poems to music.

3. The Rhyme Bible Storybook for Toddlers by Linda Sattgast and illustrated by Toni Goffe (40 pages about 1K words) A board book version of the longer hardback version. (The Rhyme Bible Storybook illustrated by Laurence Cleyet-Merle 344 Pages, less than 4K words, also great for toddlers.)

Shorter Collections of Stories from the Bibles

4. Read-Aloud Bible Stories by Ella K. Lindvall and illustrated by H. Kent Puckett. These are classics with large illustrations perfect for reading to a big group of pre-schoool kids. We only have the first few, but there are many volumes to collect. (160 pages less than 2K words). If you need to read to a young Sunday School class, these are perfect. My husband, Evan uses these in his chapels (3k – 8th grade) a lot.

5. Tales that Tell the Truth illustrated by Catalina Echeverri (each about 20 pages less than 2K). Some of these tend to be more thematic and theological, but I have loved all the ones we’ve read. These are a favorite for Easter Baskets.

6. Brian Wildsmith’s Bible stories Easter, Joseph, Exodus, (each about 30 pages less than 3k). Possibly the most beautifully illustrated Bible stories often with metallic gold backgrounds. Gorgeous.

7. Animal Tales & Favorite Parables from the Bible: Stories Jesus Told by Nick Butterworth & Mick Inkpen. Parables retold in funny delightful ways and four stories about Jesus told from an animal’s perspective: The Birth of Jesus, The Wedding at Cana, Zacchaeus and Jesus, Jesus Calms the Storm. (200 pages, 5 K words). Our kids definitely wish there were more of these books, and they are often in our rotation.

Story Bibles

8. The Big Picture Story Bible by David R. Helm and illustrated by Gail Schoonmaker (250 pages about 8k words). Not as many stories (only 26) as the rest of the story bibles in this section, but tied together really well. My kids always want me to read “one more” story, and that’s a good thing.

9. Paraclete Bible for Kids by Juliet David and illustrated by Jo Parry (400 pages about 12k words). More stories (55!) and really nice maps for different sections.

10. Beginner’s Bible by Zonderkidz (500 pages about 15 K words) A solid introduction to 94 stories. This was a favorite of Evan’s growing up, and we have the copy from his sister with lots of her favorite stickers in the front.

12. Jesus Calling Bible Storybook by Sarah Young and illustrated by Carolina Farias (350 about 35k words). 95 stories with devotional thoughts for about every other one in the style of Sarah Young’s Jesus Calling with a Bible verse and God speaking in the first person to the reader.

13. The Complete Illustrated Children’s Bible by Janet Emmerson-Hicks (600 pages about 45k words) 270+ stories. This has a lot of stories and every page is full page illustrations. Lots of stories and lots of pictures.

14. Jesus Story Book Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones and illustrated by Jago (350 pages about 30k words) 25 stories. This is the best all around story book Bible with beautiful illustrations and amazing writing and beautiful typology and theology.

15. Spark Story Bible by Patti Thisted Arthur (450 pages about 30k words) 150 stories. A lot of stories about Jesus and various teachings of Jesus that normally are not including in children’s bibles.

16. The Biggest Bible Storybook by Anne Adeney (210 pages about 35k words) 100 stories. Each story is told from the perspective of a child who lived either at the same time or a bit after the story. So you have the daughter of the spice merchant who sold the women the spices for Jesus tomb telling the story of the women on Easter morning, or nephew of a fisherman telling the story of Jesus calling Peter. Essentially each child’s introduction gives the reader cultural information and helps modern kids connect with children in Biblical times. A unique and cool idea.

17. Laugh and Grow Bible for Kids by Phil Vischer (340 pages about 50k words) 52 stories, one per week. From the creator of Veggie Tales comes a Bible that has a sense of humor and a family connection devotional page after each story for families to talk about the story and pray including tricky bits (the Trinity!) or fun facts (geographical or historical details.)

18. Diary of a Disciple: Luke’s Story by Gemma Willis and Illustrated by Emma Randall (350 pages about 35K words) A retelling of the Gospel of Luke in an illustrated journal style (Think Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Marissa Moss’s Amelia Books or Rebecca Elliott’s Owl Diaries.) Jackson read this one like a novel, it’s fun and informal. And it has a sequel by the same pair for the book of Acts: Diary of a Disciple: Peter and Paul’s Story.

19. The Children’s Illustrated Bible by Selina Hastings and illustrated by Eric Thomas (320 Pages about 60k words). Laid out like a Discovery Kids book, this Bible has lots of pictures of actual archeological sites and artifacts along with modern day Middle East photographs and illustrations for the Bible stories. Try to get the larger size, as the more compact on has very small font.

**The next books are books that we have (or are in our library system) that I have heard great things about. These are books for bigger elementary kids, soon to be our family’s stage of life!**

Longer Story Book Bibles

20. The Book of God for Children by Walter Wangerin Jr. (400 pages about 150k words). We love Walter Wangerin Jr. and his big Book of God for adults. He’s such a wonderful writer.

21. The Golden Books Children’s Bible illustrated by Jose Miralles (512 pages about 120k words). A classic book that many people have loved for generations.

22. My Bible Story Book by Dena Korfker (512 pages about 65k words) A Christmas present from our godson whose mother adored this book growing up.

23. Egermeier’s Bible Story Book by Elsie Egermeier, Arlene S. Hall, and illustrated by Clive Uptton (640 pages about 179k words). A favorite “living book” among Charlotte Mason home school fans.

24. The Child’s Story Bible by Catherine F Vos (p. 435 about 190k words) Another favorite “living book” among Charlotte Mason home school families.

Graphic Novel Bibles

25. The Picture Bible by Iva Hoth and Andre Le Blanc (800k pages). This is the Bible that my sister-in-law read and read until it fell apart. A favorite family story about Auntie Colleen is that when she arrived at her Christian College’s Old Testament class, after a few classes the professor would ask a bible question and say “Someone other than Colleen please answer.”

26. The Action Bible: God’s Redemptive Story by Sergio Cariello (750k pages) Sergio Cariello, like Auntie Colleen, loved the Hoth and Le Blanc Picture bible as a child. And he made his own more modern version as an ode to the Bible he loved so much. My husband Evan has read this version aloud to Jackson, and they enjoyed it a lot.

Selected Excerpts from Full Text Translation Bibles

27. My First Hands-On Bible (415 pages about 16k words) 85 short excerpts from the New Living Translation with suggested activities (hand motions, art projects). This would work for devotionals for preschool children or a Bible for children to begin reading themselves in early elementary school.

28. My First Message (383 pages about 20 k words) 50 excerpts from The Message paraphrased translation with a “read, think, pray, live” devotional structure and suggested questions.

29. The Beginning Reader’s Bible Selections from the International Children’s Bible and illustrated by Marijke ten Cate (192 pages about 15k words). Geared towards early readers, this Bible has selections from the ICB over full page beautiful illustrations.

31. The Miracles of Jesus & The Parables of Jesus by Tomie dePaola. Similar to his parable collection, but with different art than his lovely Tomie dePaola’s Book of Bible Stories with NIV excerpts, this book has beautiful art and retellings of the miracles of Jesus. (short collections 32 pages about 5k, longer collection 128 pages)

32. Every Day With God: A Child’s Daily Bible (Selections from the International Children’s Bible) edited by Roy and Doris and illustrated by Jim Padgett (527 about 55K). My Aunt Karen and Uncle Skip gave this to me and my brother as children and I have memories of my mom reading it to us before bed in her room.

33. The Story: The Bible as One Continuing Story of God and His People (NIV) Forward by Max Lucado and Randy Frazee (512 pages about 160 K words). This takes about a fifth of the full NIV and connects passages together with short transitions to create a continuous narrative from Creation to the vision of the New Heaven and the New Earth. It is the longest of the excerpt Bibles and isn’t aimed at children, but would be a good place for strong readers to start.

Full Texts Bible Translations: Kid Editions

Full Text Bibles are about 750,000 words. The two Biblical translations that get recommended most often for children readers are the International Children’s Bible (ICB or the edition for adults is called the New Century Version or NCV) and The New International Reader’s Version (NIrV). These are both about a 3rd grade reading level.

34. The ICB first came out in 1983 and is the one I grew up with. Now there is an International Children’s Bible version with Sarah Young’s Jesus Calling Devotionals.

35. The NIrV is a version of the popular NIV translation that came out in the later 1990s and aimed to use simplified language. An edition of this Bible with over 750 illustrations is called NIrV Illustrated Holy Bible.

36. The NIrV also is available as an Adventure Bible, a very popular first full text Bible from Zondervan. It’s also available in higher reading level editions from the same publisher including the NIV (grade 7), NKJV (grade 7), NRSV (grade 11) , and NASB (grade 11).

Besides the popular Adventure Bible, full translation Bibles for kids with maps, glossaries, concordances, pull out information, devotional thoughts, and illustrations are available in a wide variety of English translations including The Action Bible Study Bible ESV, Kids Spark NRSV Bible, NKJV, Study Bible for Kids, The CSB Explorer Bible for Kids HCSB Illustrated Study Bible for Kids, Hands-On Bible NLT, and Holy Bible: Common English Bible Deep Blue Kids.

Honestly there are way more children’s Bibles than just the ones I’m familiar with, and there are always new children’s Bibles coming out! Some of this has to do with publishing companies, including who owns the rights to which translation and simply major secular and sacred publishing companies wanting to be able to offer their own children’s Bibles of various kinds.

Personally, I find the interaction between publishing company and Biblical translation and children’s book writing super fascinating, and something I could nerd out about for a long time. But I’ll end this post here, and I hope that it’s a helpful guide in figuring out what kind of children’s Bible the children in your life could use right now to learn more about Jesus and how much He loves them!

What are your favorite children’s Bibles? Have I missed any that you or the kids in your life love?