Ann-Margret Hovsepian
David C. Cook, 2011, 384 pp., $14.99
Jeremy V. Jones
David C. Cook, 2011, 384 pp., $14.99
If you ever have parents asking you for good devotionals to help get their 9- to 12-year-olds into the Word, publisher David C. Cook has added two great options worth recommending to parents. Triple Dog Dare by Jeremy V. Jones for boys and Truth & Dare by Ann-Margret Hovsepian for girls provide great content and an interactive format that most 9- to 12-year-olds would love.
Each devotional has a daily reading for each weekday that includes a Scripture to check out, two to three paragraphs of story or commentary, and three ideas (triple dog dares) to help put the day’s theme into action. Each weekday also provides journaling space to write about what the reader learned the day before while trying to accomplish a triple dog dare.
One feature that will have mixed reactions is the book does not include the actual Scripture readings for each day in print. The benefit to this is that it forces readers to look up the passages and begin to get familiar with their personal Bibles and where things are located. The downside is the Bible readings could easily be neglected, especially as the passage references are a bit lost in the design of each page. The need to look up each weekday’s passage is also not communicated very well.
For the weekends, each book switches things up and provides a different format for connecting with God. From stories about people who have stepped out in their faith, to hands-on projects such as painting a mural or building Noah’s Ark out of Legos, the books are chock full of creative ideas to engage students with Scripture.
