A review by Kaila and her 8 year old son Gabriel
The Big Little Bible app from the New Zealand Bible Society is a great introduction to the Bible for young children and their families. It’s also a novel approach for families who read their Bibles every day. The app is easy to navigate and features people and stories from major events throughout the Old and New Testaments. It’s written in the Contemporary English Version (CEV) so the text is fairly clear and easy to understand. The illustrations are colourful, playful and beautifully assist with the telling of the story.
Gabriel, trialled it and gave me his feedback. He really liked the format of having a circle to tap for each story. He liked having the story on a screen and was fascinated by the sounds it made when clicking on the app. Gabriel thought he’d still like to use his book Bible, but this would be handy to look at if he was out and about and had to wait for me.
I found the illustrations captivating and enjoyed the features such as the ability to highlight favourite passages. Highlighted passages are then saved to a screen that’s accessible from the home page. There is a really good introduction and I found it handy to have the bookmark and questions feature at the top of every page.
One thing both Gabriel and I missed was the ability to have the passage read aloud. I know that this adds a whole new technical dimension, but it would expand the usefulness of the app. As a matter of taste, the CEV is a bit more paraphrased than I prefer. Also I would call this a “Storybook Bible” as opposed to a Bible since it is not the complete text.
Those little things aside, I think this is a wonderful tool to expose children to God’s word. It would be best used on a tablet or iPad with a larger screen, but I found it quite handy on my phone. Congratulations to the New Zealand Bible Society on catering for our youngest Bible readers! This is an inspirational tool that will expand the reach of God’s word.
Explore the Big Little Bible App