Christian Mythology for Kids: A Secular Family's Guide to Modern Christianity

by Chrystine Trooien

"""Myths fired my imagination powerfully as a kid. Greek,
Norse, Hopi, West African animist talesI devoured them all. But the stories of the Judeo-Christian canon were an exception. The retellings were always so mired in kid-glove sacredness that all the rich drama was drained out of them. Christian Mythology for Kids finally restores these fantastic tales to their rightful
place among the great, compelling stories of humanity. I want to be a kid again so I can discover Christian myth afresh.""
- Dale McGowan
Author, Parenting Beyond Belief and Raising Freethinkers

""Inform your children before someone else does. Learn about
Christian bible stories and myths without the dogma.""
- Chrystine Trooien"

Genres: Childrens

82 pages, Hardcover

Published April 5, 2016

Reviews

[Kimberly J Hale · Rating 2 out of 5]

The secular homeschool community has been looking for a resource to teach children about the Christian faith - from a secular, non-Christian/proselytizing perspective. I had high hopes that this book would fit that bill. Unfortunately, the book goes too far the other direction. Instead of proselytizing it uses derogatory commentary about the myths/stories from the Christian tradition. I wanted a book that included the most common Christian stories/myths, with possibly a bit of commentary about how it is similar to or different from other major religions, not a book to tell my children what to think about that religious tradition. We decided to use Children's story bibles/picture bibles instead of this resource.

[Stef · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea behind this is really good; even if you're raising kids without religion, it's good to have a basic grasp of many religions, so retelling Biblical stories in a secular way is a great way to go about it. Unfortunately, all of the New Testament stuff was pretty much lifted word for word from the Bible (some footnotes on what a "talent" is, for example, would not go amiss) as if the author wasn't quite ready to go the full distance. I greatly appreciated the end notes, though, and I don't regret the purchase; this will still be useful in my home.

Also, it must be said: the illustration of the Last Supper was pretty terrifying.

[Annie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book because it was so highly praised in secular homeschool groups. We agree with the "cultural literacy" argument that even if you aren't Christian, knowing these stories helps you more deeply understand western literature and history.

But I don't want my kids to treat other religions as inferior and there's a lot of that in this book. I didn't need the commentary and bias, just the stories presented as stories without dogma.

Minor, but also did not like the artwork. At all.

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great layout. Especially appreciated the morality caveats at the end of several stories. Sadly, many of the stories did NOT have a good moral!