Little Bible Stories

PreS—This program features four Bible stories: David and Goliath, Jonah and the big fish, Joseph and his coat of many colors, and the Good Samaritan. Rendered in a colorful cartoon format, the retellings are simplified to make them entirely accessible to toddlers and preschoolers. For instance, David's beheading of Goliath is omitted entirely. Potiphar's wife's accusation that Joseph raped her is modified to "she lied about Joseph." Technically, the cartoons are animated, but only minimally; for the most part, the images are stationary. All of the characters look like toddlers. While there is a child-friendly, Fisher-Price appeal to this artistic approach, it is off-putting at times. It's disconcerting enough that Joseph's brothers plot to kill him, but even more so when the brothers look like a passel of two-year-olds. Two disappointing aspects of the DVD are the lack of racial diversity and the predominance of male figures, most of whom, Jesus included, are white. The only woman depicted is Potiphar's villainous wife, though the narrator is female.