Journeys with Elijah Book

Journey with Elijah is an excellent picture storybook that helps teach religion to students in a tasteful manner. The story is written by Barbara Diamond Goldin and illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. The audience recommended for this book I would say from third to fifth graders.
One of the things that I really enjoyed was the information that the author always provided before the story. It was usually a small paragraph about how the author used those facts to create his stories. Through each story, the readers are more informed with the history of the Jews and how they have traveled around the world and all of their struggles.
The stories helps teach children to be more open to other religions and teaches them about the faith of Jews without offending or putting down other religious. In the fourth tale: The weaver of Yzad, actually tells us how the Jewish and Muslims even worshipped in the same temple. That can teach children to respect others' beliefs, and maybe learn about the similarities they share.
I enjoyed the diverse stories that the author wrote, yet all of them had the same theme; do not judge others on their appearances. This is an important issue that students always face. A lot are too preoccupied to care only on outside appearances or popularity and later they also learn to discriminate others based on looks. This book teaches children and adults not make distinctions among people, but treat people equally. The last story really resonates with this message. Because Rabbi Meir wanted to see the prophet Elijah he made the mistake of not lodging a beggar. The beggar was the prophet in disguise.
One of the things that I did not like was the first story of Elijah. I personally know well the story of Elijah and the challenge he did to the other false prophets and I don't believe the author told the story right.
The illustrations by Jerry Pinkney were phenomenal. The illustrations are really authentic with the time period in which the stories are set. The drawings are really detailed and fine, and he focuses in all the littlest of details. The artistic style of the story is realistic art. The artistic media to create these works of art are watercolors. My favorite drawing was his interpretation of heaven. The double spread illustrations are just breadth-taking. They are really beautifully done. Through his work, the reader can see how passionate Mr. Pinkney is about his work.
I would definitely use this book for classroom purposes and in my own household with little cousins. I would rate the book five stars. I would highly recommend this book to yet others because I have already started recommending this book.