Brother Andrew: Taking Bibles to the World (Heroes for Young Readers)

Great story and very nice picture, we also got the book for older kids that gives more information on him.

After reading the biography of Brother Andrew called "God's Smuggler," I wanted to find a children's version so I could share his wonderful story with my children. I was extremely disappointed to open this book and find that it is written entirely in verse. Somehow, the marvel of Brother Andrew's salvation and faith-filled life gets lost in the sing-songy rhymes. The story of his prayer "Lord, you make blind eyes see; now make seeing eyes blind," as his car was searched for Bibles he'd hidden in plain sight is reduced to a few lines of poetry, which has the effect of making it seem trite. I appreciate that it must have taken a great deal of effort to summarize this man's life in verse, but I regret that this resulted in leaving out so much. There is no mention of the sweet story of his pet monkey, his miraculously healed leg, how he witnessed for Christ as he worked in the chocolate factory, the numerous answered prayers before he even started going behind the Iron Curtain, and so many other tales that are not told. As for those that are told, I had a bit of trouble following them even though I had heard them before. The rhyme is distracting, and the power of the story is lost. Rhyme is just not a good medium for biographical works, I fear. If you don't think the rhyme would bother you, I would still warn you that a great deal of detail is left out. If you just want to give an extremely basic overview of his life for young children, it may be fine for your purposes. If you want anything resembling an actual biography, with detail, you'll probably want to look elsewhere. My search for a good children's biography of Brother Andrew continues!