A Patch on the Peak of Ararat

Written by Gary Bower
Illustrated by Barbara Chotiner

Ah, do you remember the old children's book, "This is the House that Jack Built"? It built line upon line and repeated all the previous lines, like "This is the house that Jack built.... This is the cat that ate the rat that lived in the house that Jack built. This is the dog that worried that cat that ate the rat...." And so on. I haven't read that story in years and so I might have messed it up, but you get the idea.

Anyway, this book is built like that. It talks about the "ark that proceeded to park on a patch on the peak of Ararat." And then it talks about Noah's and Noah's sons and the door and the ramp and the animals and the rain and so on and so on. It's a fun little story to read.

The pictures are unique. I'm not quite sure what the word is to describe them. When I looked at them one description that came to mind was chainsaw carvings. Sort of a rough and square cut figures. But they are nice, not realistic, but still nice.

The book says it's juvenile nonfiction, so I'm not sure what age bracket they would put it in. It's a nice hardcover book, so obviously not too young because the pages could easily be torn. I struggle with giving an age to books like this. My almost two-year-old likes this book, but she is very easy on books and so I let her have all these kinds of books. But I know if we ever have other children, the story might change. I would say probably 3-8 year olds would enjoy this book.

I liked this book. There is another book by Gary called "The Beautiful Garden of Eden." It is also in the series "a Faith that God built" so I'm not sure if it would be the same rhyming structure or not.

I received this book from Tyndale House and was not required to write a positive review.