9 Fruits Alive (GodCounts Series)

The concept was good.. but the execution was bland. The vanilla nothingness of each attribute of the fruits of the spirit are completely secular. "Joy is a fruit you can pass along, by singing your favorite silly song". That is NOT what the Scripture teaches and not what my child should remember being the meaning of the joy that only God can give us. The fleeting happiness brought by singing a silly song is in contrast to the lasting joy of learning more about God and drawing closer to him. I changed the line to now read "by singing your favorite Bible song". Another example is "Faithfulness is being a friend to the end, playing together till you're 110". Yes, that is true according to the Webster's Dictionary definition. But the scriptural principle is so much deeper and still so easy for a child to understand. I changed my book to read "Faithfulness is when you God's word obey, praying often each and every day." The other pages are just as bland. I was disappointed.

The books colors are a tad odd. The image online is what i expected, but when it arrived the background in the cover is not a light yellow its a light orange and the kids skin looks orange. Inside the book, the skin colors look better, but the other colors are overly bright and to me a bit jarring... especially when the background is all bright purple or bright pink. I would even say some of the colors are heading towards neon. I really do not like bright colors especially neon so this was a big disappointment to me. Plus the picture colors were in conflict with the fruit's color pallet (duller and not bright) so the fruit do not get noticed as much... when they should have been the focus of the pages especially when only a few fruits are left on the page.Content wise the book was pretty good at teaching the fruits of the spirit. Many of the concepts were put in examples or terms a child can understand. However I disagreed with how they taught peace. Peace is not about reconciling conflict between people... because conflict will always be around us. True peace is about reconciling your own fears/stresses etc. and giving them to God. I wish this page had been about sleeping in peace no longer afraid of the dark or monsters under the bed because knew God more powerful then both.Production wise, the book is lumpy and has dents on pages because of how the pop up plastic fruit was constructed and inserted into the pages. I own another book of this type and this damage is far less. The book needed to have been constructed better or at least use a thinner plastic base so didn't bend the pages as much. In fact, this book didn't really need pop out plastic fruit... it makes no sense to take fruit away each page when you are gaining the fruits in your life. Also why have fruit if not even counting them? Would have been better if fruit was additive not subtractive so had all the fruits of the spirit at the end. A summary page with all the fruit names would be better than the forced last page of Jesus that really did not flow with the rest of the book.Overall, I like how the book teaches the fruits of the spirit. I think the pop of fruit was unnecessary, would have made different coloring choices, and disagreed with their presentation of peace.

I seriously have bought 10+ copies of this book! My kids enjoyed it around age 1 to even age 3 now. I've given this book for baby shower gifts and for 1st and 2nd birthdays. It's my favorite!It has a page for each fruit and proved to be super engaging. We have been making the conscious decision to only buy Christian books for our kids (we get enough "regular" books from people over time) and it has resulted in my 3 year old having a strong comprehension of Jesus and many biblical concepts and stories.

I like this book a lot. My 3 year old remembered 5 of the 9 Fruits Of the Spirit the next day and totally impressed my mom and me. It is a basic explanation of Love, Joy, Peace Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self Control as a parent you can elaborate more as the child begins to grasp those basic ideas. The book is colorful and cute, but not too distracting. After a week my 3 year old can look at the book and tell me all 9 fruits and explain what they mean based on the pictures. She is very smart but this book should be good for older children who have never been introduced to the Fruits or are learning to read. My 3 year old and I love this book.

I love this book so much I bought the entire series! This book is great for a variety of ages. My son just turned a year old and loves to point at all the fruit and play with the holes in the book (the cutouts for the fruit) and the wording is short and sweet so it keeps his attention and all the while he's learning a great Bible verse! I love how this book explains what each of the fruits of the spirit are and gives real examples for them to be (ie) kind. If you like this book you'll like her other books that are done in the same style!

Such a joyful and positive book. Both my littles love the durable pages, and not only do we get to explore the fruits of the spirit, but we also get to count, work on color recognition, AND each fruits name. This is my 3 year olds favorite. We also enjoy, "Jesus and the 12 dudes who did."

Our son loves this book. The pictures are beautiful. The little fruits on the top of each page hold up well considering we have a two year old that pokes at them:)

This was recommended to us from a friend and absolutely love it. Explains in terms that children can relate too.

Great book for small children, nicely describing the fruit of the spirit and helping children to visualize it with actual fruit standing out from the pages. Also the wholes in the book that let the fruit peep through draw children's attention and make the book versatile and more fun. Great buy!

Wonderful book my kids loved it and found it very useful

Great christian book to introduce them about the concept of the fruits of the spirit. The ilustration with the 3d fruits are very fun for the little one