MOWMT: Making Christian Faith Accessible with Laura Sassi

March 17, 2025

[Note: Click HERE or on the Title Links to buy the books.]

Two months ago my newest faith-filled book for children released. Published by Worthy Kids, Faithful Feet is a playful walk through the Bible using feet as the lens for the deeper message that God loves it when we spread the good news of His love to all. 

As a Christian author, I am passionate about writing books like these that make the Christian faith accessible to youngest readers. But, faith can feel so abstract, especially for our littlest ones, so what’s an author to do?  And where might  might she find the answers?  If you guessed by examining faith-based mentor texts, you are right!  Over the past decade, I have pored over countless Christian picture books and have noticed four common practices that work. Here they are each paired with a delightful mentor text. 

1. Faith is made accessible for kids when the author chooses Bible concepts/stories that are age-appropriate. 

The preschoolers-2nd graders that we write for are concrete thinkers, so when writing faith-filled content for this age it makes sense to steer away from some of the more abstract theological concepts and instead focus on easier to grasp concepts like love, kindness, forgiveness etc. or on perennially-loved stories from both the Old and New Testaments, such as David and Goliath, the birth of Christ and more. It’s amazing how many ways these same general concepts/stories can be presented in fresh, fun ways for kids.

Tama Fortner’s Christmas is Coming! (B&H Kids, 2020) is a great example of how to make a beloved Bible story accessible for kids in a fresh, engaging way. Her opening, “Christmas is coming! It’s almost here… the day we celebrate the greatest gift of all”, succinctly establishes the tone and message that follow as spread after spread she uses simple narrative to tell the Christmas story. It’s a great little book to analyze and enjoy.

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2. Faith is made accessible when children see children in the story.

When children see children like themselves in faith-rooted stories, it sparks curiosity about how they, too, might be connected to the deeper spiritual message being shared. And in all the Christian-based picture books I have read, I’ve found that this is most effectively done when children are present in both the text and the images.

One of the best recent picture books to do this is Eric and Meredith’s Schrotenboer’s This Special Blessing for You (Zonderkidz, 2024) which takes the Aaronic Blessing found in Numbers 6:23–27 and turns it into a tangible prayer to say over little ones using sweet concrete examples of how this might be played out in a child’s life.  Each spread is a beautiful pairing of children living out the blessing using both text and illustration. 

3. Faith is made accessible for kids when the author makes the most of metaphors and concrete images.  

There is, of course, overlap in all these practices and the best faith-filled picture books employ most, if not all, of them. Still, this one stands out for me as an author, because it’s really about the power of word choice to convey meaning in ways that appeal and resonate with little ones. Employing metaphor and concrete language does wonders in making the abstract graspable.

Amy Houts does this beautifully in God’s Protection Covers Me (Beaming Books, 2019) which explores what it means to be covered in God’s protection. Using simple rhyming text, with a repeating pattern that begins with the phrase “Like a….” she conveys, spread after spread in concrete metaphors, all the ways God’s protection covers a child. My favorites include “Like a hive surrounds a bee” and “Like a warren for a hare”. Tapping into Practice 4 (below), the illustrations by David Creighton-Pester bring each metaphor to extra vibrant life. 

4. Faith is made accessible for kids when text and illustration work together to tell the story.

This practice is true for picture books of every genre, but it’s especially helpful in faith-based picture books that often have an extra theological layer or which are set in Biblical times. In these cases the details in the illustrations add a visual component that makes the story easier to relate to for preschoolers and young elementary-aged children.  

This double-pronged effort is nicely demonstrated in Glenys Nellist’s Baptized in the Water: Becoming a Member of God’s Family (Zonderkidz, 2022). Explaining the significance of baptism to youngest readers could have been a daunting task, but Glenys explains it beautifully through the combined efforts of her rhyming verse brought to full life and extra detail in Anna Kazimi’s illustrations.  

If you are interested in writing books that make faith graspable for young readers, I hope you’ll take a closer look at these great mentor texts.  You might also enjoy a peek at my books over at my website’s book page: https://laurasassitales.wordpress.com/books/

PRIZE: For the giveaway, I will give away  a copy of FAITHFUL FEET to one lucky winner — US address only.  

Happy writing!

Bio: Laura Sassi has been a teacher, homeschool mom, children’s ministry director and more.   She is the author of multiple books for young children including the best-selling Goodnight, Ark, which was a 2015 Christian Book Award Finalist; Goodnight, Manger; Love Is Kind, Little Ewe, Bunny Finds Easter, Happy Birthday Christmas Child, My Tender Heart Devotions, which is a Christianity Today Book Award finalist (and is part of the My Tender Heart series), Faithful Feet and more. She writes daily from her home in New Jersey and finds special joy in sharing messages of kindness, comfort and hope at school visits, church gatherings, and other events. Visit her at: https://laurasassitales.wordpress.com/

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