I was sent a digital copy of the Book of Jonah: Word for Word Bible Comic (NIV Translation) in exchange for a review through the Bible Gateway Blogger Grid. I’m a little late on giving the review, but better late than never!
The Book of Jonah has a special place in my heart. It’s quite simply one of the most beautiful and relatable stories in the Bible. With my family, we’ve heard it quoted from memory, watched it performed at the Sight & Sound Theater, and we’ve even memorized it.
So I seriously jumped at the opportunity to read and review a graphic novel version of the Book of Jonah! I read it to my kids a few nights ago, and I spend some time this last couple days gathering my thoughts about how I should go about this review.
Anyway, that’s a whole lot of introduction to say this: this is the Book of Jonah like you’ve never read it before.
I mean that in both a good and a bad way. The story of Jonah is engaging, and the illustrations that this graphic novel add to the story help the reader to picture what’s going on. At times, the illustrations even add a type of commentary. For example, in the opening verses, there’s an illustration of the people of Nineveh worshiping what they believed to be the gods of fish. I appreciated this attention to detail!
But negatively, it can be easy to miss some of the words of Scripture. In order for it to read more like a graphic novel, some of the words of the Book of Jonah are deemphasized, or almost even invisible because it renders it as grey text on a grey background. I can definitely understand why this was done, as it makes the story flow better as a graphic novel. But it can also, at times, cause the reader to miss something from the story.
Nevertheless, I think this is a great tool. It would make a great gift for those people who enjoy this style of reading and art, and want to see the Bible come alive in this way. It’s available for order at https://www.wordforwordbiblecomic.com/buy