Who Was Esther?, and Who Was David? Kingdom Files series by Matt Koceich

My daughter has really enjoyed the "Who Was" series from our local library, and I was excited to learn that author Matt Koceich has come out with something similar but with Biblical characters.

Who Was David? and Who Was Esther? are just two of the books in this series. Each book tells the life story of a biblical character and reads like a biography that is separated into three sections--Fact File (key information), Action File (events of the character's life), and Power File (memory verse and application for your life). Clue boxes appear along the way and give applications from the story. These books are for kids ages 8-12.

I thought the stories were a good re-telling of the facts from Scripture so that kids can get a total understanding of the main character being discussed. But I wish the stories were less dry and more engaging for the reader. On the other hand, the power-up section in the back of the book would be a great talking tool to use with your kids as you discuss the book together.

In Who Was David?  I thought that this book could of really used a map to help the reader follow along.  In the Power-up section in the back of the book,  power-up #4 talks about God being with you which is a great lesson we can learn from the life of David. But I didn't like what was emphasized in this paragraph: "After David defeated Goliath, the king invited him in to be a part of his team. Saul sent David out on missions, and David was always successful. So Saul gave David a high rank in the army. David found success in all things he did because God was right there with him." It's almost like he's saying that if God is with you, then you will always be successful. The main idea is not that because we have God, we will be successful with whatever we do--soccer games, life going well, etc.  God was the One Who worked through David because David obeyed. I wish this would of been said a little differently since success is looked at in such a different way by our culture.  In Who Was Esther?  I appreciated that this book did include a mini timeline and a map of the area that was being discussed. Overall, I think the series is a great idea in helping kids get familiar with the character's complete story from Scripture instead of just knowing about them from one story of their lives.

The following is a list of the other books in this series: Who is Jesus?, Who was Daniel?, Who was Jonah?, Who was Mary, Mother of Jesus?  You can see all the books from this series by clicking here.

***I received complimentary copies of these books from Barbour Publishing and was under no obligation to post a review.