I had cats before I had kids. So, my kids have always had cats in their
lives. Even after I lost the first two
cats (Gatzby the male and Asreal the female), we acquired two more. My daughters are now on their own, at 23 and
21, but I still have the most recent cats, Jett (his full name is Jett Black,
because he is a black cat, of course) and Squeaks (a female calico).
Kids, in general, love animals. They love their own pets and love to visit
farms and petting zoos and the big zoos and aquariums.
Bible stories have been written and told many, many
times. But they have not been told from the animal’s point of view. Noah has many animals in his story, Adam and
Eve had a snake in their story and Daniel had lions. Then, of course there is Jonah and the whale.
There are animals throughout the Bible. What a perfect way to make each Bible story
impactful to the children! As I wrote
the stories, I could hear them being read to the children and I could even
picture them being acted out, as the children participated in each story.
Anyone who has kids knows that they love repetition. They love to hear their favorite stories
again and again. Not only will they be
able to picture the stories, they can picture themselves being part of each
story as they act it out. How exciting
for the child, and the parent or teacher.
Not all of the animals in the stories will be kind to the
characters. The snake, in the story of
Adam and Eve is sneaky, but the dove in the story of Noah’s Ark is
helpful.
I have even added a few animals that were not obvious in
the Bible, because I wanted to include them in the stories. ‘Animals of the Old Testament’ includes a cat
that helps to find Moses in the river and Ruth has a donkey in her story.
The most important element to these stories, I believe,
is that each animal has a name. The dove
in the story of Noah’s ark is Miriam.
The cat that helps to find Moses is Khu.
It has been fun to assign animals and their
names to the stories and I think the children will enjoy them.
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