I haven’t written anything specifically about Easter for a couple of weeks. I’ve still been hashing through everything in my mind, especially when it comes to how to incorporate true celebration of Easter into our family traditions. I’ll talk about that more later.

But, this weekend I was at Borders with a friend and was browsing through the kids’ Easter books on display. Lo and behold, I found one I love!

The First Easter by Carol Heyer grabbed me as soon as I opened it because the illustrations are beautiful. Most of the other Easter books I looked at were cartoony – Heyer’s book has gorgeous fullpage life-like illustrations. I also really appreciate that Jesus is not really depicted in any of the pictures – one has the back of his head, most are drawn from His perspective so that He’s not in the picture other than His hands or something. Why is that a good thing? As I discussed in the review of The Shack, we need to be very careful about creating an image in our minds of God – especially God the Father, obviously, but even of Jesus – we’re not given physical descriptions of Him in Scripture, and there is surely a reason for that!

As I started to read the text, I was hooked. The other Easter books (Christian books included) for young children seemed to still be 90% about bunnies and eggs and then at the end would say, “But Easter is really all about…” with some kind of cartoon illustration of a cross and some Easter lilies. I wasn’t feeling it. The first page of Heyer’s book acknowledges the bunnies and eggs, but then goes into the whole story of Jesus. Let me walk you through the pages:

1 Nod to candy and Easter baskets
2-3 Jesus’ birth at Christmas, the visits of the shepherd and the magi, and an illustration of a camel! I love that it starts here!
4-5 Jesus choosing the 12 disciples, healing the sick and teaching about God, greeting the children.
6-7 Palm Sunday
8-9 Clearing the temple (I dare you to find another kids’ picture book about Easter with the clearing of the temple in it!!)
10-11 Talking with the chief priests and elders, and that the priests were angry with Him
12-13 Temple leaders plot to have Him arrested
14-15 The Last Supper (it even talks about the “Feast of Unleavened Bread” and that they were celebrating the “traditional Passover meal.”)
16-17 Garden of Gethsemane and Jesus’ arrest
18-19 Jesus before Caiaphas and Pilate
20-21 Golgatha – I like that the illustration on this page is of a soldier on the ground at the foot of the cross, shielding himself from the lightening. I appreciate that although it deals with the cross realistically the picture isn’t disturbing to a young child.
22-23 The empty tomb, angel at the entrance – and the angel is actually male!
24-25 Mary Magdalene meets Jesus in the garden
26 – “This is why Christians celebrate Easter” summary

I do want to say that some of the vocabulary is a bit above my 3-year-old, but that’s ok with me! Hooray for authors and illustrators for telling the Biblical account of the cornerstone of our faith in such a beautiful and truthful way.

I did not receive compensation of any kind for this post.  I am an amazon affiliate and would receive a small percentage of any sales resulting from the links provided.