The Rhyming Bible

In the beginning…

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2008. I was illustrating full-time at Mission City Press, a small Christian publisher. I spent the majority of my time on The Beginner’s Bible series. Work had slowed, and I found myself with time to fill. I had always loved the series and felt blessed to work on it; however, I thought the stories could be more fun. As a kid I was easily bored by simple prose, but I loved Dr. Seuss books. I was enthralled by his quirky pen-and-ink drawings and captivated by the rhyme and meter of his stories. They made up the majority of the books I had checked out of the school library. And I checked them out over and over. I guess I thought he had the best job of anyone—ever. 

 

I had never written a story myself, and I had no formal education in writing. But I had plenty of time to kill, so I got permission to try my hand at writing Bible stories between projects. My first story was Food for a Fish. I followed that up with Daniel for Lunch, The Biggest and Toughest, and Good News of Great Joy. I thought they were pretty good. Surprisingly, my boss thought so too. The stories were pitched for the series. They were rejected. But that would work out for the best. Not long after, the Beginner’s Bible property was sold, and our company closed. Fortunately, when I asked for it, I was granted the ownership of the stories I had written. What next?

 

I began pitching them to large, well-established Christian publishers, and eventually, one of them agreed to publish my stories individually. I titled the series The Magnificent Tales. In 2014, the four stories were added to sixteen new stories and released as The Magnificent Tales, Treasury of Bible Stories. All five books received very good reviews, but they never sold well. Bad timing? Poor marketing? I wasn’t sure why, but neither was I deterred. I was already thinking about creating a full Children’s Bible, not just a treasury with twenty stories. But I would need at least fifty stories total. And illustrations. Not to mention finding a publisher who liked them enough to invest their time, effort, and money into publishing them. This might be hard.

 

I spent the next several years freelance-illustrating and refining my skills as a writer. I even spent a full year writing two stories a week and making them into YouTube videos just as practice. I wrote several more Bible stories. I refined my old stories. I sketched art for some of the new ones. And I looked for a publisher. During this in-between time, I had several non-Christian children’s books published. My writing was getting better. Then I mentioned my idea to Chad Harrington.

 

Chad is the son of the Lead Pastor of the church where I am a member. He is also a Christian book publisher. He’s smart. He’s a good writer himself, and he’s passionate about his work.  He’s a stickler for detail. Chad won’t publish a book that isn’t theologically accurate and of the highest quality possible. He was interested, but he wasn’t ready to take on all that publishing a Children’s Bible entails. His expertise was in black-and-white, soft-cover books. He had never published a book for children. Not to mention one that was filled with full-color illustrations and well over 300 pages. Plus, I’m not exactly a well-established writer. I’m not a prominent theologian or preacher. I’m just a sinner saved by grace that nobody’s heard of. Not only would this be a lot of work. It would be a considerable risk.

 

We tossed around ideas for a couple of years for an easier, less complicated book(s) to start with. I wrote a new series of Christian fiction in prose. I illustrated several books in the series. It was close, but not quite right. Then we thought about publishing a couple of the rhyming Bible stories as a test. So in 2024, we released The Rhyming Bible Easter Storybook and The Rhyming Bible Christmas Storybook, working out a few bugs in the process. It was time.

 

Chad and his talented team planned, organized, scheduled, edited, and designed. I reworked the original stories. I wrote more than thirty new stories. Then they were all edited, rewritten, edited again, and rewritten again. Repeat. Too many times to count. In the end, we had fifty-seven rhyming, illustrated Bible stories. We were nine months over schedule. But who’s counting? It finally went to the printer.

 

Countless hours of work by many people went into creating The Rhyming Bible, a journey of over eighteen years. It was not created to make millions, but to reach millions. We hope that kids will learn to love the stories. And that the adults who read them might be inspired to read the Holy Bible. To do this, we knew we had to make The Rhyming Bible the best that we could—one word at a time. 

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The journey continues…