Jonah's Trash...God's Treasure (Mr. Grungy's Junkyard Bible Stories) [Hardcover]

Joel Anderson (Author), Abe Goolsby (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 4, 1998 | Age Level: 5 and up | Series: Mr. Grungy's Junkyard Bible Stories

The most creative telling of the story of Jonah that you've ever seen. This new picture book by award winning designer Joel Anderson and Illustrator Abe Goolsby features a creative art style using "Jonah's Trash" to illustrate the story focusing on "God's Treasure". Provides hours of fun, riddle solving and seek-and-find. Full color through-out.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Part "I Spy" game and part parable, Anderson's clever picture book is an eye-catching adventure. In rhyming couplets, narrator Mr. Grungy tells the tale of Jonah and the Whale. Anderson adheres to succinct plotting in verse form, but the story grows confusing after Jonah converts the Ninevites by saying "Change now or you will die!" The brevity of the text doesn't allow room for an explanation of Jonah's feelings of anger toward God and bitterness toward the people of Nineveh. The real plus here is the 3-D multimedia artwork. Anderson and Goolsby have created collages from such found objects as bottle caps, telephone cords, crackers, cereal and pretzels. Despite the inanimate ingredients, the composite images of the central characters convey both mood and emotion; Jonah's face consists of a three-pronged electrical outlet sporting a thatch of beard, and the whale, comprised of a soda bottle, watch bands, a bicycle light and cooking spatulas is a glittering wonder. Each spread also contains a "Trash & Treasure Hunt" which challenges readers to locate particular objects in the artwork ("Find at least ten metal things/ and something which unlocks a door."). Youngsters will find it hard to resist this fun and novel approach to studying a classic Bible story. Ages 3-up.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 2-Extremely busy yet entertaining double-page illustrations are the outstanding feature of this rhymed story of Jonah. Constructed from all sorts of found objects such as pretzels, pipe cleaners, electrical cords, dried peas, and much, much more, the collages are eye-catching. Children will have fun identifying the multiplicity of components and admiring how they are used to create the pictures. Each scene also has a "trash and treasure hunt" puzzle with instructions for locating various things in the picture. Although the versification of the text lacks fluidity, the poem is adequate and neatly tells how Jonah, hating Ninevites, tries to shirk God's assignment to warn them to mend their ways. He takes a ship sailing in the opposite direction. As the boat, a wonderful construction of tongue depressors, bottle caps, and such, sets out, a storm begins to rage. Knowing that God is angry with him, Jonah insists on being cast overboard into a sea of crinkled blue plastic wrap and from thence into the great fish's flotsam-filled belly. Spat out on the shore of Nineveh, he does his job and learns reluctantly that the people he considers trash are God's treasures. Not a first purchase, but clever.
Patricia Pearl Dole, formerly at First Presbyterian School, Martinsville, VA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 5 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson (May 4, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0849958253
• ISBN-13: 978-0849958250
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 9.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #182,859 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Most creative book you've ever seen!, August 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Jonah's Trash...God's Treasure (Mr. Grungy's Junkyard Bible Stories) (Hardcover)

This book is not only a fun re-telling of the story of Jonah, but the most imaginative re-telling you've ever seen. Illustrated completely with trash, your children will have hours of fun looking for things like goldfish, candy, popcycle sticks and more in the pictures. Each full color spread also features "seek and find" elements to add more to the fun. You'll love it!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, unusual, captivating childrens' book, August 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Jonah's Trash...God's Treasure (Mr. Grungy's Junkyard Bible Stories) (Hardcover)

My kids love this book, and they choose it over and over again to be read to them. They also love to scour the pages for all the hidden items they need to find. The unique illustrations keeps them alert and interested while listening to one of the best Bible stories for children.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Illustrations, but one error, July 9, 2007

By 

Sara Westhead "Sara Westhead" (Southampton, Bermuda) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jonah's Trash...God's Treasure (Mr. Grungy's Junkyard Bible Stories) (Hardcover)

I agree with all the other reviewers - this book is quite amazing! How they created each of those scenes is just spectacular, and you can spend forever just pouring over each page.

However, I did discover one error in the book. On page 3, the author writes:

"God said, 'Take a boat to Ninevah...'"

The problem is that Ninevah is landlocked in Persia, and you cannot take a boat there. To get there, he would have had to travel by caravan. Tarshish was in the opposite direction, in what is now Spain, and was at the very end of the world as they knew it at that time, across the Mediterranean, hence would require a boat to get there.