The Story of God & All of Us, Bible Series Young Readers Edition

by Roma Downey, Mark Burnett

Experience the Bible from a new & fresh perspective. Based on the epic miniseries, this book tells the dramatic stories of men & women of scripture, including: Abraham, Sarah, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Samson, Saul, David, Daniel, John the Baptist, Mary, Jesus, the Disciples & Paul.

Genres: Nonfiction, Christianity

204 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

In a career spanning 25 years, Roma Downey has earned multiple Emmy® and Golden Globe nominations as an actress and a producer. Born in Ireland and classically trained in London, Ms. Downey has performed on stage with the famed Abbey Theatre Company and has appeared both on and off Broadway. Among her many television appearances Downey is probably best known for her starring role as Monica, the tender-hearted angel on the hit show “Touched by an Angel" which ran on CBS for almost a decade. She also played the leading role of Jackie Kennedy Onassis in the Emmy® award winning six-hour miniseries for NBC ‘A Woman Named Jackie.' 

Downey is president of LightWorkers Media a joint venture with MGM. Downey along with her husband Mark Burnett produced the Emmy® nominated miniseries ‘The Bible’ for History Channel, which was watched by over 100 million people in the US alone. They also produced ‘Son of God’ the feature film that stunned the box office when it became the 2nd highest faith movie opening of all time. In 2016 Downey received the Irish Diaspora Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Screen from the IFTA as well as her star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame. The Hollywood trade publication Variety recognized Downey as a "Trailblazer" and listed her as Variety’s ‘100 Most Powerful Women in Hollywood.’ The Hollywood Reporter included her and Burnett as their ‘Most Influential People of 2013’. In 2014, Downey won the ‘Movie Guide Grace Award’ for her role as Mother Mary. That same year, Downey was also honored on Variety’s Women of Impact. 

In addition to “The Bible” and “Son of God”, Downey and Burnett have produced numerous television series including "The Women of the Bible" for LIFETIME, ‘The Dovekeepers’ for CBS, ‘A.D. The Bible Continues’ for NBC, and “ answered Prayers” for TLC.   They were also executive producers on the feature films “ Little Boy” for Open Road Films, “ Woodlawn” for PureFlix, “Ben-Hur”  for MGM and Paramount and the documentary “Faithkeepers” about the persecution of Christians and other minorities in the middle east. 

Downey's new venture LightWorkers.com, sees her label come to life as a digital platform and movement.  The mission of LightWorkers.com is to create and curate engaging, empowering and inspirational short-form content and to build a community of sharing, while igniting a movement in the real world that motivates people to share the good all around them.

Reviews

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Story of God and All of Us Young Readers Edition is a great way to read some of the more commonly known stories of the Bible in a simple way. Some of the stories included are: The Story of Creation, Noah's Ark, Abraham and his sons, Moses, David and Goliath, the birth and life of Jesus, and much more.

I have wanted to read the Bible for a while, but when looking at it, the task can be a bit daunting. However, this particular book is a wonderful way to start reading excerpts of the Bible, but in story form. The book is split up by chapters and because it is geared to young readers, the stories are quick and simple.

I give this a 5-star rating because of the comprehensive way the book is setup and how easy it was to read some of God's stories. This gives me confidence to begin reading perhaps parts of the Bible. I would recommend this book to young readers and adults who would like to know a little more about the common Bible stories, and not feel overwhelmed in doing so.

[Michael Guzman · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seems many bible stories are geared for very young children and too simplistic or they end up way too long and convoluted. This book is neither and is a great summary of the bible for young adults. The narrative is written in such a way it is easy to follow and has quite a bit of action.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked that this book made things simple for me to understand and because of that, it made some things actually clear to me that I never even realized before. Obviously it is not a Bible replacement and the stories are not necessarily in 100% full detail. Great story though.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not realize that this was the Young Readers edition. That is my own fault for not reading below the title. As a result, this is not as detailed as the original book based on The Bible miniseries. This was still a nice review of The Bible itself. Obviously this does not include everything as this is only 204 pages long and while Bible versions differ most of them are at least 700-800 pages long. Also this is edited for children and teens so most of the violence and sexual references were removed.

In some ways it was nice to read a simplified version of The Bible where I was reminded of several facts that can be more difficult to keep track of with the full version. The authors tried to make The Bible more accessible to young readers, and I think they were successful in that. This may not be what most adults are looking for though. For me, I think this can best be described as a basic and brief synopsis of The Bible that has clearly been edited, but it serves its purpose if you want to "read" The Bible in one sitting.

[Valerie McEnroe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick read for middle grade readers about key characters in the Bible. Straightforward. I wish the storytelling was more engaging. Not sure it has what it takes to compel the average reader. It's divided up into 10 parts, which I assume parallels the 10 miniseries episodes. They are as follows:

Part 1: Abraham, Noah, Jacob
Part 2: Moses
Part 3: Joshua, Samson, Saul (Jericho, judge, 1st king)
Part 4: David
Part 5: Jeremiah, Daniel (Babylonian exile)
Part 6: Mary, Jesus (beginning of ministry)
Part 7: Jesus (ministry)
Part 8: Jesus (days leading up to crucifixion)
Part 9: Jesus (crucifixion)
Part 10: Jesus, Peter (resurrection, Pentacost)

I felt like the pacing was off. I felt like too much time was spent on Jesus compared to the Old Testament. Essentially 5 episodes are devoted to each. Thousands of years vs. 3 years. Although the book could be better, I'm still inspired to watch the miniseries.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I love about this book is the fact that it is written in a way that young adults aka teenagers would not feel that the stories are written in a way that is too simplistic and sounds below their comprehension level. This book contains 10 chapters and is easy to read but also is good to take your time digesting. Some chapters are way longer than others and might need multiple sittings to complete. But the book is great and another way to consume the words and thoughts of the Bible. It of course is not capturing all that is in the Bible but has a lot of highlights in this almost 200-page book. This book is based off "The Bible" TV miniseries and includes some pictures from the show in the middle of this book.

[Jordan Cotter · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was not crazy about this book. I know it's an adaptation of the Bible for young readers. But it took too many liberties with the Gospel story, misrepresented characters, and left out keys details imo.
The Acts portion wasn't bad, but I'd rather just read the Bible, skipping commands, lineages, and parables so it reads like a story.

[Jenean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Plan on reading this to my students. Great was to work through important people from the Bible.

[J · Rating 2 out of 5]

I ended up with the Young Readers edition and if I had known that I may not have picked up the book. Why? The reason that it is known for being the Young Readers edition is that anything sexual and/or violent has been removed from the stories while anything that could be questionable has also been removed thus paring the stories down to a mere shadow of what they used to be if one has been educated with the actual Bible.

Thus the Creation has been removed as well as the story of Abel and Cain. Instead the reader is introduced to Noah who is just finishing his trip but it isn't the ending that is found in the original. Ruth and Esther have been left out as well as most other female stories in the Bible while in the story of David you don't hear about his mishaps of Bathsheba.

Other fictional elements have been added to the stories such as thoughts that they may have experienced, how they responded to the situation and the replacement of important elements such as the sacrifice of Isaac there is an angel instead of the ram caught by the horn. For those who are having problems with biblical reading this is most definitely a bad replacement and I would suggest watching the series over the reading of this particular variation although the Bible is a far more better replacement of both.

Otherwise it is pretty decent when you embrace it just as a fictional retelling and don't give much of a second thought. Although some important elements are used it isn't one that will be a replacement to those raised in the Christian world.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

The authors succeed in making the Bible accessible to kids. They focus on action filled familiar stories. The novelization and present tense writing distinguish this book from from typical children's bibles but the writing itself is nothing special.

[Graciela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es bastante ligero y fácil de entender
Lo recomiendo para aquellos que se quieren introducir a la lectura de la Biblia.

[Dkw · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good.