(Tommy Nelson's) Brave Girls Bible Stories {review}

As a Tommy Mommy, I received a copy of this book to facilitate my review. We were also sent these great pink tees. 🙂 As always, all opinions expressed here are entirely my own (and those of my family).

my brave girls 🙂

Who Are Tommy Nelson’s Brave Girls?

Tommy Nelson has just introduced a new…line, I guess you’d call it. This line features five young ladies — the “Brave Girls” — who are representative of our own young ladies and a means for them to “connect” to the things that matter. Hope, Glory, Honor, Gracie, and Faith are pretty different from each other, but they have in common the one thing that matters most: they love the Lord. I liked the concept when I read a little about the characters online, but I like it even more now that I’ve had the opportunity to look at the book. (I say “look at” because we haven’t read it cover-to-cover yet. We’ve read all the girls’ stories and anything else at the front and the back of the book, and some of the stories/devotionals, but not every one, yet.)

I like that Hope, Glory, Honor, Gracie, and Faith have different personalities, strengths, and struggles. That’s the way it is in real life, but often in fiction we find “ruts.” There’s not a lot of that here, which is impressive. I was a little disappointed to see that there aren’t any “Brave Girls” like me: I probably would be described as brave and bold — certainly assertive — but grace and gentleness come a lot harder for me. In essence, I have most of the strengths we associate with Christian men and lack all of the strengths we associate with Christian women. That makes it very hard to grow up being a girl, and I feel that girls like me can use all the help we can get to envision what it really means to be a godly woman and still be the “me” that God made us! But any young lady can learn from these Brave Girls, whether they identify completely with each individual girl’s personality or not.

I was also impressed as I read the Brave Girls’ stories, that there is diversity here, too. There are no cookie-cutter families. One of the girls has siblings adopted internationally. One girl’s parents have recently divorced. One girl is homeschooled. (Yay! For once my kids don’t have to figure out how to identify with classroom issues; there’s someone like them.) Some of them struggle with learning at school. One is above grade level, which has its own set of problems. To sum up: the writers have done a great job here of covering a wide spectrum of situations young girls might encounter.

Read Tommy Nelson’s letter to parents about the Brave Girls collection

Brave Girls Bible Stories

This specific book, Brave Girls Bible Stories, is pretty neat, too. This is basically an “all the women of the Bible” book, but for kids — and it’s really well done. Each woman’s story is prefaced by a Scripture verse and a brief introduction by one of the Brave Girls. Then it’s followed up by a lesson from the Brave Girl, and short prayer.

The story itself, while true to Scripture, isn’t Scripture. It’s the retelling of the story by the Girl who introduced it and followed it up. Essentially, it’s as if one of the Brave Girls came over to have a chat, she said, “you know, I’ve been thinking about [woman in the Bible] and how she went through [situation].” Then she tells you the story and follows it up with what she learned from her.

It’s very conversational and approachable. The lessons are made very relevant. They’re very…varied? We’re not hearing the same lesson taught over and over; rather, we’re hearing a broad spectrum of character traits applauded. And I thought it was remarkably insightful. I’ve been a believer (essentially) my whole life. My parents have been teaching me Scripture from the cradle, and I’m a reader, so I’ve done a good bit of studying on my own. With all that background, even the very first story (in this book for young children!) was presented in such a way that it caused me to think about it in a manner I never had before.

I am beyond impressed with how expertly this book manages to go both broad and deep, how it manages to be conversational and meditative all at once. Taken as a whole, I believe it’s an excellent encapsulation of what the church should look like.

(And, yeah, being hot pink and almost sparkly doesn’t hurt with the little girls, either!)