Monday, March 14, 2011

Cecil the Lost Sheep

Cecil The Lost Sheep, Andrew McDonough

One of the best recent series of Christian books for young children is the Lost Sheep series, which starts with Cecil The Lost Sheep. This first book was only published in 2006, yet there are now 20 books (see the website).

Andrew McDonough has a real skill for taking bible stories and making them accessible for children, by using fun creatures, bright exciting illustrations and humour. They are great for groups, as they are fun to read out loud. Our children's programs at church has many of these books now and the children love them.

Cecil is based on the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15:1-7. But he adds fun extra stuff to turn it into an exciting and interesting story for kids:
One day Cecil was daydreaming. "Boring, boring, boring. All I do is hang around with sheep, eat grass, wander down to the river for bit of a drink and eat more grass. Maybe I could run away and, and ...get a bike... or join a band!"

Cecil looked rght.
Cecil looked left.
He jumped over his rock and hid.
As with any book series, some are stronger than others and some you will prefer over others - we have really enjoyed this one, Jonah and the Whale, Basil the Branch, Bob the Bird and others. We haven't read them all.

They are cheap (~$5 per book) making them perfect for presents and gifts for larger groups of children. And one final plug for South Australians - they are produced in Adelaide, by a team (I think) of Adelaideans.

Good fun Christian books for kids.


2 comments:

Pip said...

We used Dave the Donkey for our easter day service last year. Paid a small fee on the Lost Sheep website to download the powerpoint version of the book - excellent!

Wendy said...

That's good to know about the powerpoint Pip, I had not spotted that on the website. Thanks.

I think Dave the Donkey is my all-time favourite - I will probably review it individually closer to Easter.