The Adventures of Adam Raccoon
Available from Three Sixteen Publishing (the same publishing house that produced the Preacher’s Bible and the NASB Children’s Edition), The Adventures of Adam Raccoon is a delightful book collection of fictional stories for young children. In this series, the main character, “Adam Raccoon,” learns a number of important life lessons through his adventures in “Master’s Wood,” the fictional land in which he lives. Unlike other children’s books, however, this series instills in children not just important life lessons, but biblical life lessons.
Through these allegorical tales, Adam Raccoon (who represents the first man Adam, and subsequently all of humanity) allows his unbounded curiosity, self-determination, and other character flaws to get the best of him, thus suffering the consequences and desperately needing some kind of restoration. Ultimately, a lion named “King Aren” (representing Christ) corrects the situation in one way or another. And so it is that mankind’s fallenness and redemptive need comes through loud and clear in the pages of these books, in contrast with the vast majority of moralistic material commonly offered to children.
Lofty Theology, Bite-Sized Allegory
For example, in the story Forever Falls, Adam Raccoon sees a sign posted by King Aren that says “NO SWIMMING” next to what appears to be the most beautiful, peaceful, wonderful swimming hole in all of Master’s Wood, named “Tempting Pond.” Going in direct disobedience to that sign, Adam Raccoon looks to see that no one is watching, and dives in. Outfitted with flippers and goggles, he’s delighted to swim around and examine everything in the water, until he realizes that he is floating his way straight toward “Forever Falls”—a raging waterfall with a rocky bottom. Shouting for help, he is rescued at the last minute by King Aren. But in pulling Adam out, King Aren goes over the edge and plunges into the murky water below. Feeling astonished and dismayed as he thinks about King Aren’s sacrifice, Adam later rejoices when he is met by none other than King Aren, who was able to survive the fall and come back to be with him. This, of course, represents the substitutionary atonement of Christ, suffering the punishment of God on behalf of sinners, and raising Himself back to life. Lofty theology in a bite-sized allegory.
Of course, using an allegory to convey biblical truth is nothing new; this has been happening for centuries. But, in my opinion, one of the biggest factors that makes this series stand out from the crowd is that it does not rely on any element of magic or wizardry in order to convey these truths. Whereas many of the more popular biblical allegories utilize spells and sorcery—as if to imply, pragmatically, that these things are redeemable and acceptable if used for biblical instruction—the Adam Raccoon series uses none. On account of that, I’m incredibly thankful and more than happy to recommend this series to others. In fact, having received a couple of these books from the publisher for review, our family has already begun purchasing the rest.
For More Information
Beyond the theological content, the books come in a nice hardcover binding at a 6.5” x 9” size, and are loaded with brilliant edge-to-edge illustrations courtesy of author and artist Glen Keane (who has an impressive thirty-eight year history of animation credentials with Disney).
More information on the series can be found at the Adam Raccoon website: www.adamraccoon.com
Purchases can be made at the publisher’s website: https://316publishing.com/product-category/adam-raccoon
Free Adam Raccoon coloring pages can be found here: https://316publishing.com/free-downloads
In our home, we give gifts to our children as they reach memorization milestones in their catechism—not as rewards for their effort, but as reminders and celebrations of God's goodness in their lives. For a purpose such as that, these books are a great fit. As you continue your adventure in expository parenting, I gladly commend to you The Adventures of Adam Raccoon.