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Doorposts Review by Deborah Wuehler

5905 SW Lookingglass Dr.
Gaston, OR 97119
Hidden Treasures
Searching for Wisdom
Digging into the Book of Proverbs with Your Family
By Pam Forster
http://www.doorposts.com/

What do you get when you ask young people around the U.S. to illustrate the book of Proverbs and then have the people at Doorposts publish it? You have a unique gem of a Bible study tool for your family. These young illustrators each picked a verse to depict from one of the chapters in Proverbs and they did an excellent job transferring words into art. I love this book!

Pam Forster likens the study of Proverbs to a treasure hunt for wisdom. Proverbs is full of word pictures, and the delightful illustrations in this book depict just that. The illustrations are all black line drawings for the purpose of photocopying for your children to color while listening to the reading of the day.

The idea is to have someone read a chapter while everyone else looks at the picture for that chapter. Then, the listeners try to correctly identify which verse the picture symbolizes. There are over 100 illustrations in this book, all drawn by talented kids just like yours.

Pam suggests that you begin with your own real treasure hunt with the children, hiding a prize - some type of treat for the whole family. My kids absolutely love treasure hunts and this is a perfect way to segue into talking about all the treasure and riches in God's Word just waiting to be unearthed in the book of Proverbs.

This book isn't just for the little children. There is a load of suggestions for your older children and adults. It presents various ways to study by understanding the purpose of the book of Proverbs, the theme of the book, and the layout of the book (i.e., admonitions, sayings, contrast and comparisons, similes and metaphors, etc.). There is a section which goes into topical studies and suggests studying one topic each month with a list of topics to study. There are also many blank forms for entering the contrasts, comparisons, observations, advice and more, thereby categorizing the different Proverbs as you study.

A Chapter-by-Chapter section gives clues to look for such as words like, "then", "therefore" and "thus". Be on the look out for hinge verses - linking two sections of verses together. They also provide projects and questions and ideas of things to look for in each and every chapter of Proverbs.

I love the chapter called, "Special Activities." There are 20 fun activities to reinforce what you are learning, such as a concentration game using the truths of Proverbs. They have even provided a sheet of cards to photocopy for this game. One side gives half of a Proverb's text and you try to match them to the other half of the text on another card.

The book also gives great suggestions for memorizing in general and even a wealth of suggested Proverbs to print out and keep a log of for memorization purposes.

There are over 160 pages in this spiral bound book which is full of all the tools you would need for digging up the buried treasure of the Word of God in the book of Proverbs. If you have wanted to study Proverbs with your children and were looking for a resource, this is it - this is the gem at the end of your hunt!



-- Product Reviewed by Deborah Wuehler, Devotional Editor for The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, March, 2006

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