It is time for a
FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between!
Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Today's Wild Card author is:
and the book:
Cape Arago Press (September 2, 2013)
***Special thanks to Edward Lewis for sending me a review copy.***
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Sheila Deeth is a prolific writer whose works span multiple genres. Besides the popular Five-Minute Bible Story™ Series, she is also the author of the What Ifs…Inspired by Faith and Science books, as well as several children’s Bible Picture books. A life-long Christian, she has spent many years as a Christian Educator and Sunday School Teacher. Sheila’s writing reflects her familiarity with a wide spectrum of Christian beliefs.
Ms. Deeth was born in England and earned a Bachelor and Master’s Degree in Mathematics from Cambridge University. She now lives with her husband in the Pacific Northwest where she enjoys reading, writing, and running the Coffee Break Bible Studies and the Writers’ Mill writing group when not meeting her neighbors’ dogs on the green.
Visit the author's
website.
SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:
With the introduction of Bethlehem's Baby, Biblical author, Sheila Deeth, turns her prodigious writing talents to familiar tales from the New Testament. This Sixth Volume in the ever-popular Five Minute Bible Story Series looks at the characters and events leading up to and immediately following the birth of the Christ Child...from Caesar Augustus and Herod to John the Baptist, Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth and many more.
This series of 40 linked short stories is aimed at the Middle Grade Reader. Each one is chock full of insights, information, and her trademarked quirky humor, making them a joy for youngsters to read or hear. Each story contain Biblical references and ends with a prayer, making them work equally well for reading to younger children, or grandchildren, at bedtime or naptime. Like all books in the Five-Minute Bible Stories Series they'll have your children begging for “just one more.” Fully Illustrated and Contain Author’s Notes.
Product Details:
List Price: $3.99
File Size: 725 KB
Print Length: 123 pages
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publisher: Cape Arago Press (September 2, 2013)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
Language: English
ASIN: B00EY172MA
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
~ 1 ~
GOD
(The Old Testament)
In the beginning, God created
the universe. He made stars and planets. He made the sun, moon and earth. He
made mountains and seas, flowers and trees, birds and bees, and animals and
people. And everything was good.
God made the world like a
painter creating a beautiful picture. He mixed its colors together, designed
its patterns, and added light and dark in all the right places. When God
finished painting, the earth was good enough to hang on the wall of heaven.
God made the world like an
author writing a book. He worked out the details, solved all the mysteries, and
linked all the pieces together. When God finished writing, he gave us his words
in the Bible so we could read them. Meanwhile angels rejoiced to know what he’d
done.
God made the world like a
programmer designing a computer game. He set up all the scenes, made voices for
the characters, and planned how all the rules would make everything work. But
computer games often have bugs in them. Our world was so good when God finished
making it, there wasn’t a single mistake in it anywhere.
But God didn’t hang the world on
a wall when he’d finished. He didn’t leave the Bible on a bookshelf to look
nice. And he didn’t sell his program to people who wanted to play humans on
their computer. Instead, God made the world like a gardener who works in a
park. When he’d finished planning and planting everything, God stepped right
into the park to help the people look after it. God’s park was a beautiful
place called the Garden of Eden.
God worked in his Garden of Eden
every day, feeding animals, helping bees, watering flowers, cleaning the
rivers, and pouring sweetness into beautiful berries hanging from the trees.
God walked and talked with the people in Eden, loving them like a father loves
his children. He taught them to play and he kept them perfectly safe. No one
was ever hungry in the Garden of Eden. No one was tired or sick. Nobody ever
had to work too much and no one was ever bored. Even plants and animals were
perfectly safe in Eden, everything beautifully in balance, living and dying in
due season with no sickness, no loneliness, no sorrow and no pain.
But then the people in God’s
garden, the people God had chosen to be his very own children, broke God’s rules.
They didn’t care that the rules were there to keep them safe, or else they
didn’t remember. They just wanted to do as they pleased and have fun and
pretend they were in charge. So they ate the fruit of a special tree that
wasn’t theirs to eat.
Now God’s Garden of Eden began
to change. With people making their own rules nothing ever worked like it
should. Seeds weren’t planted at the right time, and crops were harvested too
soon. Farmers didn’t store enough food. They didn’t take proper care of the
animals. They didn’t move when the weather changed, and they built their houses
in foolish places then complained when their buildings burned down. What a
mess! But God was still watching and helping his people. He hadn’t finished
with them then, and he hasn’t finished with us yet.
God sent his people out of the
broken garden, out into the world where we have to work for a living, and fight
for freedom, and struggle for safety and space. God still protects us of
course, but he can’t keep us completely safe because then he’d have to make us
always do exactly as we’re told, and most of us aren’t very good at that.
Still, one day, when the time
was perfectly, wonderfully right, when everything was just as ready as it could
ever be, when everyone was in the perfect place at the perfect time, God came
into his world as a baby boy called Jesus. Like a painter stepping into his
picture, or an author talking to his characters, or a computer programmer
trapping himself inside the world of his game, God became Jesus and lived as a
human child, just like you and me.
Because of
Jesus, the world really is going to be perfect one day. No one will be hungry.
No one will be sad. No one will get sick or scared. There’ll be just enough
food and drink for all the people and animals, just enough rain and sun, just
enough laughter and fun, just enough of everything good, and nothing of
everything bad, all because God became man and saved us all.
Thank
you God for our beautiful universe and the lovely planet we live on.
Thank you for caring so much for your
creation and for caring so much for us.
Thank you for sending Jesus to live among us
and save us.
And
thank you for your Spirit who helps us live how you want us to.
Bethlehem's Baby is truly a joy to read to your children and/or grandchildren. They will love it! It is available as an eBook. The Kindle version can be purchased at Amazon by
Clicking Here
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