Children's Illustrated Bible

I read a lot of books when I was a child, but I never got around to the most printed and best-selling book of all time, the Good Book, the Bible. Probably a good thing too because from what I've read even the condensed version is difficult to get through, with archaic words like "begat," "agape," "covenant." Even 10-year-old me might have lost interest, and having read it as an adult, the Bible is not exactly a children's book that leaves you warm and fuzzy after reading it. There are animals, but not the cute, cuddly kind, more like lions ready to eat Daniel and various plagues that befell Egypt like frogs, locusts, etc. Lots of people die, some brutally, there's incest, there's rape, etc. All the shortcomings of mankind are on display, as the Old Testament actually does begin with the original sin of Adam and Eve succumbing to their human interests. Which is why I picked up a copy from the "Complete illustrated Children's Bible" from the library for Baby Girl Yan, a cartoonish depiction of all the highlights, covers the major points. There are a lot of real humans from history in here! Cyrus the Great, Darius of Persia make appearances, as do King Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazar, and well, Jesus...depending on whether you think he was real or not. I loved the pictures in the children's bible! Toned down the violence and killing, emphasized the key points, cut out all the difficult-to-read parts. Baby will be able to read it soon! Or at least look at all the colorful pictures and develop her optical nerves, rods and cones, all that. MJ and I will discuss how to present the Bible to her. The 2026 World Cup has come to an end for Team South Korea.....a shame because it started off so well, with a 2-1 thrilling comeback victory against Czechia, (formerly known as Bohemia), but then just an ignominious defeat to South Africa of all people when all they needed to do was win to play in Los Angeles with a huge Korean population.....unfortunate, but at least they made it to the World Cup unlike China, Italy......I wish I was more of a soccer aficinado but I've never really been able to get fully into it, maybe because I didn't grow up in that culture living in suburban Chicago. I did play soccer when I was a kid, and some bad memories of being one of the worst players on the field, teammates getting upset at me, coach letting his son play instead of me so the team could win even though the whole point was to let all kids play equally...not the fondest of memories, maybe one of the reasons I never followed it. It was also hard to organize a game; most parks don't just have a soccer net set up, and even if they do it might not be the right size, the field is not set up for soccer..... I can see why the game has such appeal though, all you need is a ball and then you can set up goals even with 2 rocks marking the end points. Literally almost anybody can play, and there's plenty of running around for everyone, whereas it's so hard for a kid to play baseball and just stand in the outfield waiting for something to happen. And at the highest level, the world up, the skill level is so intense: I never even got to the level of securing the ball with "one touch" or doing a "through pass" or doing headers, some of the basic skills that the best footballers in the world have perfected. I can see why Team China doesn't devote time and resources into soccer though....it's just not a great sport for the Asian body. Maybe I'm making excuses for my own inept abilities (it's a skill issue) but soccer is a just not suited for the Asian body: it requires skill, speed, height, leg strength, stamina......all facets of an all-around athlete that the Chinese just don't produce as much of. Need tall players like Scandinavians to get those headers!