Book Review: The Biggest Story

The full title is actually, The Biggest Story: How the Snake Crusher Brings Us Back to the Garden. This book is very different than all the other reviews to date on the site, however, this may be my favorite yet. There are a couple reasons for my preference.

First, this story is near to my heart. I not only love the connection of the garden and the cross, I believe this story to be true. It is one of the most beautiful stories ever written. Regardless of your faith upbringing this book is full of love, hope and redemption that we as humans long for.

Second, this book is illustrated by one of my favorite living designers. Don Clark is one part of the duo that makes up the Seattle-based design firm, Invisible Creature. His use of color, pattern, texture and contrast make this book a visual masterpiece.

If you haven’t guessed this is the story of the Bible that has been adapted by Kevin D. Young to be simple enough for a child to understand. He nicely ties together the Creation story with the Easter story and how everything in between connects. This is a great primer for anyone who has a difficult time seeing the finely woven thread throughout the Bible.

It isn’t a quick bedtime read but is fortunately broken out into chapters to allow for easy break points. It even has a built-in silk bookmark so you’ll know right where you left off.

Book Construction:

This is a hardback book with a dust jacket. The interior pages are full colored, brilliantly printed on a silk paper. Even the end sheets are decorative and beautiful. I am not a huge fan of dust jackets but fortunately even if this one gets ruined the hardback cover is printed with the same art.

Overall the quality is magnificent, I would expect nothing else from Don Clark.

Illustration:

BEAUTIFUL! This is the reason I bought this book. Yes, the story is awesome like I mentioned before, but without these illustrations I would have passed on this book.

Every single spread outdoes the previous. Even on the chapter break pages the pattern work is stunning. I’ve never seen a book with this amount variety that has such a cohesive and consistent style. The colors, patterns, and textures are an inspiration for the book that I am illustrating as well. If only I can accomplish a smidge of what was done here I would feel accomplished.

Typography:

Like I said before this is not a short book so there are a lot of words. With that being the case, the body copy is very straightforward. It is a very beautiful and readable serif font albeit a bit small for many people.

The other typography in the book is the chapter section breaks. These blur the line between typography and illustration, but they needed to be mentioned here.

Number of Reader Voices:

One narrator.