Basic HTML Version
all, read at random a verse here, or possibly a chapter there.
We needed a book in today's language, setting forth in
lucid, interesting, easy-to-understand English, the plain, simple,
continuous flow of the Bible Story.
God supplied the man for this assignment in nationally-
known artist Basil Wolverton. Such mass-circulation magazines as
LIFE, TIME, Pageant, have written about him and reproduced multiple
pages of his work. His work has appeared in more than 50 national
magazines. He is a trained writer, as well as an artist with a
style all His own.
Mr. Wolverton was one of the earliest to be converted as a
result of the broadcast, more than 20 years ago. He is a thorough
Bible student, and a member of the Board of Trustees of Ambassador
College.
By writing in simple words, yet with good style, at the
approximate 10-12-year level, Mr. Wolverton is producing a book
that is interesting to ADULTS, as well as to children. Thousands
of adults, as well as children, have followed it avidly as it has
been appearing in serial form in the pages of The Plain Truth. By
reading it to them, with a little parental explanation, even
children as young as four and five can grasp the interesting, all-
important message.
It is profusely illustrated with Mr. Wolverton's striking,
most realistic drawings.
Our big problem was how to publish and distribute such a
book. Through the years we have been able to send out tons upon
tons of attractive booklets and pamphlets, without any price--
entirely FREE. But a whole BOOK--well, that was something quite
different! How could we GIVE a complete book?
Temporarily we solved the problem by publishing it serially
in The Plain Truth, starting with the November, 1958, number. Last
year the book publishers, printers of TIME, LIFE, Newsweek (West
Coast editions) and The Plain Truth (U. S. and Canadian edition),
came up with the final solution. They presented a very attractive
cover design, produced by their art department. By going into mass
production, with a high grade cardboard cover instead of cloth
board, the production cost could be reduced to a point that we
could offer it--a volume at a time--ABSOLUTELY FREE, just as we
always have offered all our literature!
When this became possible, all of us at world Headquarters
in Pasadena, California, were elated. I had always been determined
not to sell anything. Yet we seriously needed to produce certain
complete BOOKS--just as we realize the need to follow this one with
a full-volume book embodying Garner Ted Armstrong's series of
articles on Child Rearing. There is a heavy demand for the
Autobiography in book form. There is serious need for a frank and
complete book about GOD'S purposes and laws respecting sex--a
complete and frank treatise on the subject of sex--the ignorance of
which has made perhaps two-thirds of all marriages unhappy.