by Peter Spier
1977 / 48 pages
What author and illustrator Peter Spier gives us here is a beautifully illustrated, nearly wordless account of the Flood, with only three of the 48 pages containing text. There are two biblical quotations, one to start the book from Genesis 6:8: “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” The second ends the book, and is taken from Genesis 9:20: “… and he planted vineyard.” In addition, one page is given to an English translation of a 400-year-old poem about the Flood by Dutchman Jacobus Revius.
The rest of the book is filled with seemingly simple, but incredibly detailed pictures of Noah and his family as they build the Ark, bring in the animal pairs, and feed and care for them inside. Some of the detail is amusing – two dodos are shown waddling their way to safety (at least for a few thousand years). But we also see, in a series of panels, the floodwaters overtaking the many animals that were left behind. This is no cutesy, sanitized account!
I find most Bible storybooks quite problematic, as they so often mangle the biblical texts. What I appreciate about Spier’s account is that, because it is wordless, it actually requires that you go to the Bible to read the original account. So it is not a Bible storybook meant to replace Bible reading, but is instead a Bible study book, meant to spur further thinking on God’s Word.
Americans who like Noah’s Ark will also appreciate Spier’s We the People, a picture book he made celebrating the creation of the US constitution. It contains the text of the constitution (but only 26 amendments, as the book was written before the 27th was passed), a short account of how it was drafted, and pages upon pages of pictures showing how this document has shaped the country over the last 200 years. Most picture books are intended for children, but this is one of those rare ones that an adult will readily appreciate too.