What Do Your Kids Read? and What Are You Reading to Your Kids?

By Bill Ellis

Do you have any solid idea as to what your children are reading? It might surprise you. Mothers and grandmothers are wonderful storytellers and nobody reads stories as well as they do.

Nothing was more exciting to my childish mind than to hear Mom read a Bible story. My grandmothers told tales about the past — a continuing of the oral tradition of ancestral learning.

Six months before our marriage, on my 25th birthday, Kitty bought for me a beautiful deluxe copy of Egermeier’s Bible Story Book.

Of all the Bible storybooks I have read and examined, this one is my all-time favorite. It has sold 6,000,000 copies. Elsie E. Egermeier wrote those powerful Bible stories in 1923. Years later, it was revised by our friend, author and editor, Arlene S. Hall, the wife of Kenneth F. Hall, author, editor and professor who has been very important to my writing career.

The May 2012 issue of Decision (Billy Graham Evangelistic Association) had a picture that beautifully relates to stories from the Bible. On the outside back cover is a picture of the ever-beautiful Ruth Bell Graham, reading to four of her five children — Ned had not yet been born — from the historic Egermeier’s Bible Story Book. The little boy on her lap is Franklin, now the powerful preacher known around the world as one of the great Christian leaders of our day, just like his father, Billy Graham.

It has been a privilege to meet the Graham family. Billy and Ruth have been among our treasured friends. Kitty and I always enjoyed being with them. Ruth now lives in heaven and Billy looks forward every day to seeing her and their parents.

I have regularly read Decision since its first issue in 1959. You may subscribe to this magazine by writing to: Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, 1 Billy Graham Parkway, Charlotte, N.C., 28201-0001 or call 1-877-247-2426. The cost is $15 per year.

If Ruth Graham read Egermeier’s Bible Story Book to her children, and if Kitty bought one for me and if we read it to our children and grandchildren, you can understand why I am convinced it is the world’s best Bible storybook.

If you want copies of the unequaled Egermeier’s Bible Story Book for your church, family, and friends or to sell in your store or as gifts for graduates, patients, clients or business associates, you may call Warner Press at 1-800-741-7721 or write, Warner Press, P.O. Box 2499, Anderson, IN 46018.

St. Paul had it right when he wrote to young Timothy, “. . . greatly desiring to see you . . . when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also” (2 Timothy 1:4-5).

Be sure your children and grandchildren are supplied with the finest Bible storybook. You may purchase or order your copy, as millions of others have done of Egermeier’s Bible Story Book today. The best. Check with your local bookstore or with Warner Press. Many Putnam families use it.

Bill Ellis is a syndicated columnist who can be reached at P.O. Box 345, Scott Depot, WV 25560; phone 304-757-6089.

This story was originally published in The Herald-Dispatch and The Putnam Herald on July 20, 2012.