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Louie Giglio’s Indescribable is a devotional for kids that incorporates scientific facts. I purchased it to use in our homeschool as a group devotional. Considering Louie Giglio’s dynamic speaking style and love for science (see this video about DNA and laminin – wow!), I was very excited about reading this book.
Indescribable Devotional Book Review
How It’s Set Up
Indescribable has 100 devotions, each being two pages long. Each devotion begins with a Bible verse followed by the devotion itself, and then ends with a prayer. Each devotion also has a “Be Amazed” sidebar with a (usually) scientific fact.
The science in the devotionals cover four major topics:
- space
- earth
- animals
- people
Devotions covering these topics are peppered throughout the book, but the introduction contains a handy dandy list of page numbers for each topic. The typical reader might start reading with the first devotion and go straight through, but thanks to the topic list, you can use Indescribable as a resource for your science studies.
My Thoughts
Indescribable is a nice devotional for elementary students, with easy-to-understand text, cute drawings, and interesting pictures. I read Indescribable aloud to my kids during our group learning time, and it usually instigates some fun conversation and online investigation on the scientific topic covered.
While it’s a nice devotional, Indescribable is not what I expected. Each devotion does talk about a scientific topic and relate it to some spiritual lesson, but the relation between the science and the spiritual lesson is often not direct. This lack of direct connection between science and “spirit” makes Indescribable a devotional with some science when I expected a book with a lot of science that reveals spiritual truths. In other words, I expected a book with a lot more of the laminin-type of material I mentioned above, only written to be understoood by kids. Since my expectation for the book was different from what I found, Indescribable did not grab me as I’d hoped.
To whom would I recommend [product]?
(Based on Learning Preferences and Three D’s I describe in earlier posts.)
Recommend to…
- Students that do well learning via the Spoken Word may appreciate Indescribable as a read-aloud.
- Students that do well learning via the Written Word may appreciate reading Indescribable on their own, possibly as part of their morning devotional.
- Students that do well learning with Visual learning methods will enjoy the drawings and pictures.
- Students that love science.
- Families that enjoy a family devotional.
I would NOT recommend to…
I would not recommend Indescribable to anyone looking for in-depth, The Case for Christ-type of correlation between science and God.
My Best Tips for Using Indescribable
- Consider your kids’ preferred learning methods before deciding how to use Indescribable. I found that even a child that really enjoys science (but does not learn well with the Spoken Word) had a hard time being attentive when I used this as a read-aloud group devotional.
- If you decide to use Indescribable as a resource/supplement for your science studies, do the work of plugging specific pages into your planner on the appropriate dates. For example, if you’re studying DNA, you may want to plug page 76 into your planner to use as a devotion at around the time you cover this topic.
The Last Thing You Need to Know about Indescribable
While not exactly what I expected, Indescribable is a very nice devotional for elementary students.
