Book Review: BIBLE TRIVIA, JOKES AND FUN FACTS FOR KIDS

Title: Bible Trivia, Jokes and Fun Facts for Kids
Author: Troy Schmidt
Publisher: Bethany House Publishers
Pages: 176

I realised just how little I knew of the Bible, particularly of the Old Testament, when I encountered the questions in this book. Of course, different versions of the Bible worded things differently but that was no excuse for my ignorance. So I set about reading this book with gusto.

There are a number of formats in this book that can be used to enliven Bible learning classes. Multiple Choice questions, Fill-in-the-Blanks, Match the columns, you take your pick.

The Did you know? Section includes fact learning related to the Bible. For instance, the size and scale of Noah’s Ark, the height of Goliath, the sizes of the chapters and verses in the Bible etc. The history is explained with humour. There is also a lot of interesting trivia on the longest and shortest chapters in the Bible, and the length of the verses.

The book begins with Knock, Knock jokes. Most of them are names from the Old Testament, with Matthew, Luke and Jesus, the only exceptions from the New Testament. The funniest one for me was “It’s me, Adam! There’s only one other person on the earth. Who do you think it is?

We also have Multiple Choice Questions from the Psalms, the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. The answers follow each question, and that was a relief. On a Kindle, going back and forth between pages is rather tedious.

Are You Smarter Than King Soloman? asks interesting questions, through the medium of Multiple Choice questions. there is a breath of good humour which suffuses the book, suggesting that Bible reading should be a joy, not a chore.

We also have Anagrams from the Old Testament. I enjoyed making words out of the Old Testament names.

Who Art Thou? presents us with questions, each with a series of clues. Each time we click a clue, the number of points we can earn from answering that question goes down.

We also get the details of phrases like “a wolf in sheep’s clothing” that are popularly used in the English language today, but that originated in the Bible.

And then we have the lists, especially the one list that I struggled with all through Sunday School. The listing of the ten plagues that struck Egypt, in the right order. We are also quizzed on the order of the Ten Commandments and the names of Jesus’ ancestors in the order of their birth.

Bible Banter contains some funny one-liners.

Another section calls us to match the names of husbands with wives, fathers and sons, and brothers too. Another quizzes us on the old and new names of well known Biblical characters. We are also asked to match people with the dreams they saw.

The sheer number and variety of questions is astounding. This book could serve as a fantastic way of getting youngsters and older people interested in reading the Bible.


(I received a free copy of this book from Bethany House. I read it on NetGalley.)