Review of Snatched Up to Heaven for Kids

[Phoenix Arora]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Snatched Up to Heaven for Kids" by Jemima Paul, Arvind Paul.]

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3 out of 5 stars

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The authors chose quite an interesting theme scarcely explored by children’s authors, which is introducing religion to little children. The book proceeds with visual accounts of two girls, Emma and Bella, who in their dreams are given a tour of Heaven and Hell by Jesus. They after each dream share their memoirs with their parents and are reaffirmed that their dreams are indeed an extension of reality and are exactly as how the Bible states. The little girl Emma from these dreams realizes how scary Hell can be and takes it upon herself to inform the world about the beauties of Heaven and vagaries of Hell to save them from committing sins and thus, punishment in Hell. In the end, there is a message by the parents strongly focusing on inculcating religious values in children.
The pictures in the book are quite creative, however, the text is quite rudimentary. The conversations and the experiences that the children have in their dreams are surreal. But it seems that the narration is monotonous; lacks creativity to invoke curiosity of children and is not able to do justice to the content. Further, the text either appears raw like in a textbook or is blatantly imposed on the pictures with a basic shadow to the words. There could be some work done to enhance the design element of the book to make it look more appealing to the kids. The ideas introduced in the book have immense potential but it seems more an emulation of the Bible than innovative insight into the same.
The book is more suited to an audience with religious inclination- Christianity majorly, rather than the entire populace. The focus is more on Bible than providing moral stories like stories introduced in Panchatantra or Jatakas for that matter. It is an easy bedtime read for people to introduce fundamental concepts of Bible to kids. I would rate this book a 3 out of 5, giving credit to the content in terms of the theme chosen.

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Snatched Up to Heaven for Kids
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