The Shepherd's Stone and The Lion's Roar: A Secret of the Hidden Scrolls Review

We have had the pleasure of reviewing books from The Secret of the Hidden Scrolls series two times before and each time the kids adore them!  WorthyKids Books has brought joy to our house again with the next two installments, Secret of the Hidden Scrolls: The Shepherd's Stone (Book 5) and Secret of the Hidden Scrolls: The Lion's Roar (Book 6).  If your elementary students have never read any of these books, today is the day to start!  As Christian parents, we want Bible stories to come alive to our kids, but ancient words on a page sometimes get stuck in translation.  Each book magically transports Peter and Mary to Biblical times where they race against the clock to solve secrets of the scrolls before they are stuck back in time! They kids get to spy on events like Noah's ark and the battle at Jericho, bringing a kid's eye view to some of the most fantastical events in our history.

What We Received:

We received the next two books in the series.  Both are paperback and over 100 pages and at least 12 chapters.  There are great black and white illustrations at least every 3 or 4 pages.

The Shepherd's Stone takes the kids to David as a shepherd boy and a pack of wolves, they witness the kingdom of Israel and it's enemies the Philistines.  The kids get the chance to hear about David's faith and where his strength comes from!  

In The Lion's Roar, they travel to Babylon where they meet Shadrach and hear about he and his friends' trial by fire years ago.  Then they are introduced to Daniel and the trouble he's having with the high priest.  As the children hide from the high priest with some help from a local friend, Hannah, they witness Daniel's  commitment to God and punishment to the lion's den. 

Who Is It For?

The reading levels of each book is around 2nd grade.  My 8 year old races through each book in a day because he is voracious reader, but also because he loves a good adventure book.  They are simple enough for 6 year old to read and enjoyable enough for 3rd grader to beg for.  As the author continues to add books, I'm certain my son will want to read them despite their ease simply because he's invested now.

What the Kids Thought:

It goes without saying that my 6 and 8 year old enjoy reading these books. When I asked them why, I was told it was because it had to do with the Bible.  They really seemed to connect with these familiar Bible stories presented from a different eye view.  It certainly helped that the series reminded them of certain other book series about a brother and sister that go on adventures to different times.  

What Mom Thought:

In addition to the Biblical reinforcement, the books make a point to label Satan and his forces within each story and then highlights how the children deal with that.  It's been a good exercise for my kids to wrestle with how they deal with Satan's temptations in their own life.  So much more than a fun book!

Would you like a chance to win all 7 of the books in this series? There is a giveaway going on right now! Follow this link to enter: http://bit.ly/ScrollsSweepstakes

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Wondering what other families thought? Check out everyone else's reviews at the link below!

The Secret of the Hidden Scrolls: Books 3 & 4 Review

Growing up as a lover of books, it was always a magical feeling when you found a favorite book series. A great book is hard to come by, but then great subsequent books are gold!   In 2017, we reviewed the first two books in a great series that J just loved!  This time we were given the third and fourth books in the series The Secret of the Hidden Scrolls by M.J. Thomas from WorthyKids, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.   This time around was a little more exciting because miss Z was ready to start reading the series on her own so we pulled the first two out for her!

The Secret of the Hidden Scrolls series follows Peter, his sister Mary and their dog Hank as they journey back in time to critical moments in Biblical history through ancient scrolls they find and must solve.  Through these journeys, the siblings get a fly on the wall view of God's power and plan with the help of their uncle Solomon and Michael the archangel.  In the first two books they witnessed the Creation and Noah building the ark.  The next two books follow chronologically as well.

• The Great Escape (Book #3) takes Peter and Mary back to Exodus and the Israelites trouble with Pharoah in Egypt.  Between the plagues, the Great Magician making trouble for them and the countdown to the parting of the Red Sea, the kids experience a lot! 

• Journey to Jericho (Book #4) gives Peter and Mary the chance to be spies and help sneak Rahab and her family out of Jericho before the Israelites conquer the city.  Keeping their cover, learning to be spies and dealing with the Man in Black always trying to get in the way makes it a high alert adventure!

The target age is 6-9, reading grade level 1-4, depending on the book.  J (8), avid reader, finished each book in a couple of hours.  Miss Z (5) new reader, took a few days, but once she got passed the first couple of chapters, she was hooked and seemed to speed up.  In the back of each book, there is a page that asks, "Do you want to read more about the events in this story?" It then lists the chapters where you can find the specific events mentioned in the Bible.  For even more fun, Book #6  The Shepherd's Stone, was just released in December. J has already been begging for it!

What We Liked

I love the joining of Biblical events with modern life!  As a kid, I always felt a disconnect between the Bible stories and my real life.  In addition to greater access to spiritual materials, I feel like the approach the author takes in these books allows my kids to be more invested than I was at that age.

The kids love the adventure.  Since it includes a boy and a girl it can't really be categorized as a boy book or girl book and each story builds on each other leaving them excited for the next story.  Since they were already familiar with the Bible stories, they enjoy recognizing the familiar people and events sprinkled throughout.  J (8) always noted when satan (or who he expected to be acting as satan) was involved.

They are clean, Biblically accurate, creative and fun!  Buying the set would be a perfect birthday or Christmas present!

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Wondering if we might be a little biased?  It's always possible! There were 60 families reviewing these books so feel free to check out some of there reviews through the link below to get a bigger perspective.

Kingdom Files: A Barbour Publishing Review

Over the years, I have began many Bible reading plans that start in Genesis in January and then somewhere along the way - usually in Leviticus or Chronicles - slow down to a halt.  The noble effort leaves many of the minor prophets less read than the beginning.  Children's Bible curriculum can also only hit the highlights and miss some of the significant details in the name of giving a good overview of the Bible.


My latest review is part of the Kingdom Files series from Barbour Publishing.  The entire set includes:

Who Is Jesus?
Who Was Daniel?
Who Was David?
Who Was Esther?
Who Was Jonah?
Who Was Mary, Mother of Jesus?


These Bible-based biography books by Matt Koceich dig into the entire life of individual characters, giving a broad perspective and key details to their life and place in the kingdom.  For this review we received Who Was Jonah? and Who Was Mary, Mother of Jesus? The series is intended for ages 8-12, so my 7 year old book worm did just fine.  After he read Who Was Mary, I asked him what he thought.  His response was, "It was good.  You should read it.  I think you'll learn some things!"  It made me laugh, but he was on to something.  The manner in which it is laid out provides a very comprehensive way of learning, something we don't always receive through a lesson or typical Bible reading.  Too often we remember a big event clearly - like Mary giving birth to Jesus or Jonah getting stuck in the big fish - but so much more happened that we should consider.

The books begin with a FACT FILE section that lays out key statistics and includes a miniature timeline of events specific to that character.  The middle section is called the ACTION FILE which consists of several chapters discussing the action or events of their life.  This section includes small Clues corners that are sprinkled throughout that helps the reader understand the importance or meaning of certain events.  The last section POWER FILE is filled with "Power-Ups" that are short devotions designed to study further some of the lessons taught through the characters life.  Each one includes a memory verse so that scripture is then connected to the reader's every day life. 

With my oldest child being 7, I have had a few years to experience a lot of children's Biblical resources.  There is a ton of basic children's Bibles and of course plenty of high school to adult level resources, but the stuff in between isn't always the most helpful.  As my children grow, I absolutely want my kids to learn to study the Bible not just remember some of the big stories.  Bridging the gap between the two is important and often challenging.  These books do a really good job of re-telling the life events and providing information like you would receive in a lesson at church and then applying lessons to our lives.  In Who Was Jonah, I really appreciated the large amount of context they provide for Jonah and the people he didn't want to preach to. Both books do so much more than just teach a Bible story.  For young readers, it's a good combination of scripture and devotion that can truly help them study the Bible more closely as a result.  I am excited to collect all of them and have them be a regular part of my children's curriculum as they advance in their reading.

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