Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden

By Jane E. Ray

Book Overview

Revised This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802852785
• ISBN13: 9780802852786
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Eerdmans Publishing Company, William B.
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.5" x 0.5" x 9.0"
• Age Range: 5 years and up
• Grade Range: Grades 1 to 4

Customer Reviews

Beautiful

Ray's illustrations are lovely - colorful and luminous, with gilded touches to make everything everything in Eden seem newer, shinier, and more wondrous. Certain pages are framed with smaller, detailed pieces including maps, old-fashioned line drawings from scientific illustrations, and pieces of musical scores - that give them the appearance of sophisticated story quilts. Ray's people and animals are a wonderful example of the naive art style. The story follows Adam's creation, the formation of the Garden, the creation of the animals as (not entirely satisfactory) companions for Adam, Eve's creation, and then the Fall and exile Adam and Eve's separate punishments are lumped together and made less sexist and more palatable: "Now you will learn what it is to be sad as well as happy," God said. "You will work your fingers to the bone growing food to eat and raising your children. And when you die, you will return to the earth from which you are made." Interestingly enough, the book's final illustrations make Adam and Eve's eventual fate look not as bleak as traditionally pictured with the two of them venturing off into a dull, dusty earth and making a respectable home of it for themselves - a garden outside of the Garden or a piece of Home - a redemptive task in and of itself. Adam and Eve are nude - and funkily enough, tattooed - throughout (except in the final pages), but they blend in naturally with the varied patterns and coloration of the numerous animals surrounding them. Perhaps I myself fall a little on the laissez-faire side as regards nudity, but I think any parent who gets upset at the tiny peek we get at Eve's nipple here has perhaps a few issues to work through. In any case, my three-year-old son likes it and I think it's beautiful and well told, so thumbs up from us.

Another Jane Ray book that delights

Another Jane Ray book full of artwork that delights the eyes and the soul.

Nice Illustrations but some nakedness...

This book is beautifully illustrated and the story of Adam and Eve is touchingly told including their Fall from God's grace. However, be aware that there are several pictures that show some things that may be inappropriate for younger children. For instance Eve's nipple is quite apparent in one picture and there are several naked back-sides. Overall though this book is beautifully done with some of the prettiest illustrations of nature I've seen.