When you lose the story that's running like a golden stream underneath all the other stories, you're left with the idea that the Bible is a collection of random-seeming stories about various Bible characters that we're supposed to learn lessons from - almost like an Aesop's Fables. And a book of rules that God wants us to keep so he will love us. And we lose the glorious truth of the Bible that we were loved before even the beginning of time. That God had a plan. That no matter what, he would never stop loving us.
I wrote The Jesus Storybook Bible because I wanted children to know the Bible isn't mainly about you and what you're supposed to be doing. It's about God and what he has done. It's the story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them. It's a Love Story. It's an Adventure Story. And at the center of the story is a baby - the child upon whom everything would depend. And every single story in the Bible whispers his name.
So that when you come to read the actual Bible you have a lay of the land. And you come to the Bible knowing that it's not mostly a book about you and what you're supposed to be doing. It's most of all a story. It's this wonderful love story - about a God who loves his children with a wonderful, never-stopping-never-giving-up-unbreaking-always-and-forever love.
There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling one Big Story. The Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them.
When we run from God, we run away from everything that makes us alive and free. We run away from our own happiness. We leave our place where we belong—close to his heart.
When we're about telling the best possible story, making the best possible book - we're thinking about the reader, rather than about our egos. And then we serve the story. Not the other way 'round.
If you write for children with respect and treat them with dignity - you'll capture the adults as well. Children deserve nothing but our very best. Nothing but excellence will do for the young, because the responsibility is greater. We write up for children, never down.
Why the connection with musicians? I think it's because in the end we're doing very similar things - we're telling stories, we're using poetic, lyrical language, and we're distilling stories down into their simplest form. We're both telling a story in two languages - word and music for them; and word and image for me.
A picture book is a story told in two languages - word and image. And the illustration is the front door of the book.
In a successful picture book, you always want the voice of the text to match the voice of the art; so that it seems as if the same person writing is the one illustrating and vice versa.
