Friday 6 January 2012

Divine Routes Children's Books

Over the last year I've been working away on an idea to write christian stories for young children.  From my initial thoughts and prayers came Divine Routes.  The first five stories all flowed onto paper in a few months last summer, but I had no way of illustrating the stories so put them on a back burner.  A friend read a few for me and provided some great comments and ideas, thanks JP, but still I was held back from taking them forward.

Then this week, yes it literally happens that quickly, I was pushed into getting them out in the world. I realised that they could be made digitally accessible on Kindle and would not need, or be able to support, illustrations.  Bingo, all I needed was a front cover.  And here it is; all from my own, it seems to fit the bill.


What is Divine Routes?
Divine Routes is a series of short books explaining the Christian faith to pre-school and Key Stage 1 children.  The series uses buses and their journeys on their bus routes to convey the biblical messages. The text is perfect for being read aloud and also easy to read for first readers.

God is the Bus Controller in the stories, with Jesus the bus conductor.  There are six bus routes; red, yellow, green, blue, orange and purple.  These routes are illustrations of some of the routes we may take to know God, to get to the divine.  Each route's buses are "us" with a “driver” associated; this is the Holy Spirit.

The first book of the series is "Jump Aboard the Bus".  This book introduces the characters from the Divine Routes series; the story shows how everyone has their own individual spiritual path to God. Each of us has our own route to take, right for us and watched over by God.  This story reminds us that God is watching over us, on the end of the radio in prayer whenever we need Him. It reassures us that we do not drive our route alone; we have the Holy Spirit with us to guide us in our lives. The story also assures us that Jesus has travelled the routes before us. Through Jesus’ life God knows our lives, routes and needs.

Jump Aboard the Bus is being processed by Kindle as I type and will be available in English by Monday, with other language versions coming online within the week.  My hope is to have the other books available by the end of January.

The current books in the Divine Routes Series are:
1 – Jump Aboard the Bus
2 – Good Samaritan
3 – Lost Sheep
4 – Prodigal Son
5 – The Sower



 
Buy Jump Aboard the Bus (Divine Routes) direct onto your Kindle or Kindle App

6 comments:

Cathy @ NurtureStore said...

Good luck with your project!

Unknown said...

This sounds like a wonderful series!

Beth (www.livinglifeintentionally.blogspot.com) said...

THis sounds like a great series! Super cute idea! I am your newest follower. I'd love for you to follow me back, if you want to =-) I also wanted to invite you to link up at TGIF Linky Party - http://livinglifeintentionally.blogspot.com/search/label/Linkey%20Parties.
Have a great weekend,
Beth =-)

Anna said...

Hi Emma, Thanks for your comment on my blog about your books. They sound really good. I actually stopped writing my blog some time ago, mainly due to lack of time, and will be taking it down soon, so I won't be able to review the books there. Wishing you all the best with the series.

Katie from ABC&123: A Learning Cooperative said...

What a fantastic series for young children. Best of luck to you with this fantastic project.

Ticia said...

What a cool idea! I'm super impressed with what you're planning to do. I'm trying to do a similar thing for Bible stories.