Dark Glass Ponderings

Title: The Church History ABC’s: Augustine and Twenty-Five Other Heroes of the Faith


Author: Stephen J. Nichols & Ned Bustard

Publication Date: 2010


**Special thanks to Amy Kruis and Crossway Books for sending me a copy as part of the Crossway Homeschool Book Review Program.**


My Rating: 5/5



My Review:


This is exactly the type of book my husband and I have been looking for, but geared towards children. The brightly colored pictures will keep a child’s attention. I was amazed that my five year old daughter has been begging me to read this book to her while she is in the bath.


From Augustine to Zwingli this colorful book explains heroes of church history in a way school age children can understand. My daughter loved leaning that Jonathan Edwards (mistakenly viewed as a “hellfire and brimstone preacher”) was a lover of both chocolate and spiders. I was thrilled to learn Anne Bradstreet was a mother of 8 children who wrote poetry at night when the children were in bed. I can definitely relate.


The only issue I had with this book (and it’s a minor one) is that the pictures didn’t always match up with the heroes and heroines of the faith. For instance, next to Ursinius is a unicycle so my daughter wanted to know if he rode a unicycle. Since that’s not mentioned in the text, I assume they included a unicycle because it starts with “U.”


As a homeschool mom to a Kindergartner, I could definitely use this for a springing off point to teach my daughter early church history. As I look at the web, I see a void in resources for early church history, especially at the youth level. I would without a doubt, recommend this book for both children and adults. What a fun way to learn church history!


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