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Dangerous Journey: The Story of Pilgrim's Progress
The world-famous, much-loved classic Pilgrim’s Progress is here retold for children. This abridged version uses the original words of John Bunyan as selected by Oliver Hunkin to present a gripping narrative. Filled with intricately detailed illustrations, this handsome, large-format book makes an ideal gift.
126 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1985
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 211 reviews
January 18, 2008
Ok, that title sounds like a cheesy Rex Reed movie review. But this book really did grab me. The illustrations are generously sized and very detailed. No matter how many times you have read Pilgrim's Progress you will be challenged to see things in a new light. And your kids will be drawn into the timeless story.
In a day when Western culture has lost its Biblical morrings and no longer sees life as a pilgrimage, a jounrey to Heaven, this book draws us out. It pulls us from the search for inner self-fulfilment and directs us outward to get on the road. This metaphor for the Christian life is just so gripping.
In a day when Western culture has lost its Biblical morrings and no longer sees life as a pilgrimage, a jounrey to Heaven, this book draws us out. It pulls us from the search for inner self-fulfilment and directs us outward to get on the road. This metaphor for the Christian life is just so gripping.
January 26, 2021
Read to all three kids over the weekend and everyone loved it.
January 24, 2019
I loved reading this book with my daughter. Such a beautiful allagory of our journey on the straight and narrow path.
January 9, 2021
This Children's picture book version of Pilgrim's Progress is well done. It has some graphic monster drawings (that any other book I would probably choose not to have in our Children's library), but if I am to show my young boys monsters I want them to associate them with evil and exactly what this book says. Excellent story excerpts and boys want to read it over and over again.
February 28, 2022
Re-read 2022:
Read-aloud to the kids. Upgrading this from a 4 to a 5-star book. The kids are all several years older now, and this book teed up so many good, deep, thought-provoking discussions on the Christian's walk of faith and the challenges we face along that journey. Highly recommended to the Christian parent who is willing to take the time to discuss the topics covered in this gem of a book.
Original 2018 Review:
An abridged, illustrated version of John Bunyan’s 1678 classic The Pilgrim’s Progress. Taken directly from Bunyan’s text, the archaic language may be difficult for young/new readers but our daughters have no trouble following the story when I read it aloud. For those unfamiliar with Bunyan’s allegory, this book does not shy away from covering serious issues of Christian life and faith (trials, temptation, doubt, martyrdom, grace, etc). I think in part because this is not your typical sugar-coated children’s book, Dangerous Journey remains a perennial favorite among our young daughters (age range of 3-9). I will warn you that some of the illustrations are pretty intense. The first time I read this to them I thought the illustrations might be a little too scary but my daughters were seemingly unfazed by them. Overall, a great little resource for discerning Christian parents.
Read-aloud to the kids. Upgrading this from a 4 to a 5-star book. The kids are all several years older now, and this book teed up so many good, deep, thought-provoking discussions on the Christian's walk of faith and the challenges we face along that journey. Highly recommended to the Christian parent who is willing to take the time to discuss the topics covered in this gem of a book.
Original 2018 Review:
An abridged, illustrated version of John Bunyan’s 1678 classic The Pilgrim’s Progress. Taken directly from Bunyan’s text, the archaic language may be difficult for young/new readers but our daughters have no trouble following the story when I read it aloud. For those unfamiliar with Bunyan’s allegory, this book does not shy away from covering serious issues of Christian life and faith (trials, temptation, doubt, martyrdom, grace, etc). I think in part because this is not your typical sugar-coated children’s book, Dangerous Journey remains a perennial favorite among our young daughters (age range of 3-9). I will warn you that some of the illustrations are pretty intense. The first time I read this to them I thought the illustrations might be a little too scary but my daughters were seemingly unfazed by them. Overall, a great little resource for discerning Christian parents.
December 26, 2022
Just great! Fifth time through for me and our two older ones (third one has heard it a few times now too). Some pretty gnarly art in here for little ones though. It has now become a part of the warp and woof of the way our kids conceive of life and the Christian life...so it has osmosised into our fam jam pretty big time.
September 6, 2016
My old review of Pilgrim's Progress is too long, but I want to comment on it without deleting it. Goodreads should let up on the wordcount nazi thing and allow long reviews to be posted on goodreads--and then release such reviews as books. Or not. Anyway, I totally forgot I'd written that review of Pilgrim's Progress, in my freshman year at college no less! That would have been before I even got into social Trinitarianism, FV dark, and Doug Jones, and when I was into neo-Calvinist culture-making and Lordship!
I can't delete the above, but I want to see if I still object as much as I once did. Here are some thoughts:
Objectio #1: I think it's stupid to critique for being episodic; you can be episodic and great--vide Don Quixote. I still think that Presbyterians need to get out more and read more fiction and that the sequel, though better than 90% of all sequels, is still way weaker than the first because Bunyan doesn't have to work as hard inventing things. Even so, the sequel still works: even the children, who lack individual personalities, have a collective personality that seems to fit quite well and one can sense Bunyan drawing upon his experience as a pastor in his portraits of Mr. Fearing, Feeble-Mind, and Despondency. It seems that his depression which so afflicted his preconversion life was externalized in most depressed parishioners!
Objectio #2: I still basically agree with all this. In fact, what struck me the most about re-reading Pilgrim's Progress is the semi-Catholic "penitence" period. Make no mistake: some realization of sin and repentance is necessary for salvation, but I think codifying such feelings into a stage-by-stage process does not describe either most Christians or even most of the characters in the New Testament. As a friend put it, when Peter preaches at Pentecost and cuts the people to the heart, there are no stories of people struggling with how God could forgive them. Assurance is a natural problem and guilt is a natural part of the Christian life and of non-Christian conversions, but great feelings of it are not necessary and I think Bunyan would reject the salvation of many without sufficient proof.
Objection #3: I think I would offer different critiques here, ones that were more narrow. Certainly, the Christian life is an individual one in certain respects and Paul compares it to a fight and to a race, with the crown received indeed being eternal life. I am suspicious of talking about the church as salvation; we'd need to distinguish between visible and invisible and institutional and so-forth to get this straightened out, but I would still say that salvation is not about getting helicoptered into heaven and just holding down the fort until then, which is what the theology points to. I would say that if Pilgrim's Progress errs anywhere, it focuses more on loving God than on loving one's neighbor, and that's mainly because of the vehicle Bunyan has chosen. Though there IS a community in part two, the focus is more on getting there and on avoiding sin than on actually producing good works.
What about the gnosticism? First, I would say that "gnosticism" is a misnomer. Gnostic (or Platonic) theology has less to do with it, and in fact it has to do more with Catholic bifurcations between nature and grace. Second, I'm more sympathetic to Bunyan's truly deep thoughts about not looking to the things of this world and looking to those of the world to come. I was also very much struck on this reading by how much material stuff is in the Pilgrim's Progress. In fact everything has been turned from spiritual INTO material stuff, and in fact it goes with Bunyan's rejection, not of the material, but of artiface vs. nature. Vanity Fair is a work of gaudy artiface, contrasted with the Valley of Humiliation, the Delectable Mountains, and Beulah. Even so he does not romanticize nature, giving good pictures of frugal households: the Interpreter's house and the Palace Beautiful notably which are noted for their dainties and meats. So I suppose I have to retract all the gnostic-speak with one exception: I still think his descriptions of heaven go on a bit too long and are not as good as Dante or the book of Revelation.
Reading it in the middle of a Richard Hooker translation project is especially illuminating and Bunyan's narrow sectarianism does come out, but Lewis was right: the seriousness of the mortal situation is what made Bunyan so great. And compared to Grace Abounding, this stuff is tame.
In fact, Bunyan is almost a Marxist! Nearly all the good guys are simple, lower-class, Bible-thumping sorts, and all the bad guys like Worldly Wiseman, By-Ends, Formalist and Hypocrisy, and so on are all rich and external conformers. This makes Doug Jones' critique so ironic and in fact the biggest criticism I would make of the book is Bunyan's concept of "the world." I think that the early church fathers, the first Reformers, and 20th century Evangelicals are all under persecution and it's damaged our theology. The antithesis threatens to mean that the mainstream culture will always oppose the faith (or at least the faithful distinctively outside that mainstream) and that therefore when the two come into conflict, we can know pretty well in advance who's right simply by consulting the tribe. History does not bear this out: Christians have been wrong on all sorts of issues and all tribes and denominations have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The "world" means the world of unbelief and we apply the typology properly, not when we see two cultures in conflict, but when we suffer for the sake of Christ because of a "company" that blacklists us. That "company" need not be in the majority or even the dominant element in society. It might be an insidious minority trying to stir up trouble. Bringing this back to Pilgrim's Progress, I think Bunyan makes a lot of great hits on his enemies, often hitting their patterns of speech and hypocritical externalism dead center. I think that if we looked in the Anglican church of his time, we would draw the same conclusions as he did.
Nevertheless, I say, his bias against the Church of England sometimes comes across as mere partisanship; his attacks on externalism seem uncharitable; his hatred of gaudiness and ceremony sound like the grumblings of the man who sees no reasons for all this pomp and show; and his insistence on standing for the word of God despite all concerns about public peace are ominous and sometimes obstinate.
Even so, I think it's a great book and it's great because literature to be great need not be precisely theologically accurate. Great literature must capture life with as much clarity as possible. In fact, Bunyan's partisanship is one of his greatest strengths. I still like what I wrote about the allegory not being primarily valuable as a didactic, except perhaps in the theological bits (which I actually like very much). However, I do not go to Pilgrim's Progress to be edified, but delighted and this time around I was struck by how clever the book is, especially in the first part.
If you talked to a Jew or even a Catholic, pilgrimage meant going to the city of Jerusalem to sacrifice in the Temple or kiss the saints' relics; no more of that now. Bunyan has turned it all into a permanent journey from which there will be no return. We wander through "the wilderness of this world" and we hope to reach the promised land. In the first part, the invention is non-stop: Despond, Sinai, archers at the Gate, hill difficulty, the lions, Apollyon, the Valley of the Shadow of Death, Vanity Fair (how many books spawn both a literary classic AND a magazine), Giant Despair, and the river of Death itself are all visual, memorable, and often strange twists or extrapolations of small Biblical phrases. Even the second part, for all its repetitiveness, invented the muck-raker.
Bunyan also says in the introduction of the second part that his prose is difficult to imitate and there are so many wonderful words in here and even a few insults (how could I forget that he called Hopeful a clamshell head?) that are so true to life. Okay, the characters are allegorical, but they so often talk as if they weren't and their language is so homely that it betaketh itself most lovingly to the mind.
So the allegory is somewhat deceptive, behind the labels are the realities of Bunyan's current day. One cannot get into the Pilgrim's Progress without breathing, at least for a little, the air of the Sixteenth century. I can't think of any better recommendation on which to end this little reflection than to urge you to get a copy of Alan Parry's illustrated Dangerous Journey and to read it aloud to your kids. Not only is it a beautiful copy, but it will give your kids an opening into another time that is rarely so accessible. Lewis said that Bunyan got an education simply by pursuing the Christian faith; I think reading Bunyan will do the same.
I can't delete the above, but I want to see if I still object as much as I once did. Here are some thoughts:
Objectio #1: I think it's stupid to critique for being episodic; you can be episodic and great--vide Don Quixote. I still think that Presbyterians need to get out more and read more fiction and that the sequel, though better than 90% of all sequels, is still way weaker than the first because Bunyan doesn't have to work as hard inventing things. Even so, the sequel still works: even the children, who lack individual personalities, have a collective personality that seems to fit quite well and one can sense Bunyan drawing upon his experience as a pastor in his portraits of Mr. Fearing, Feeble-Mind, and Despondency. It seems that his depression which so afflicted his preconversion life was externalized in most depressed parishioners!
Objectio #2: I still basically agree with all this. In fact, what struck me the most about re-reading Pilgrim's Progress is the semi-Catholic "penitence" period. Make no mistake: some realization of sin and repentance is necessary for salvation, but I think codifying such feelings into a stage-by-stage process does not describe either most Christians or even most of the characters in the New Testament. As a friend put it, when Peter preaches at Pentecost and cuts the people to the heart, there are no stories of people struggling with how God could forgive them. Assurance is a natural problem and guilt is a natural part of the Christian life and of non-Christian conversions, but great feelings of it are not necessary and I think Bunyan would reject the salvation of many without sufficient proof.
Objection #3: I think I would offer different critiques here, ones that were more narrow. Certainly, the Christian life is an individual one in certain respects and Paul compares it to a fight and to a race, with the crown received indeed being eternal life. I am suspicious of talking about the church as salvation; we'd need to distinguish between visible and invisible and institutional and so-forth to get this straightened out, but I would still say that salvation is not about getting helicoptered into heaven and just holding down the fort until then, which is what the theology points to. I would say that if Pilgrim's Progress errs anywhere, it focuses more on loving God than on loving one's neighbor, and that's mainly because of the vehicle Bunyan has chosen. Though there IS a community in part two, the focus is more on getting there and on avoiding sin than on actually producing good works.
What about the gnosticism? First, I would say that "gnosticism" is a misnomer. Gnostic (or Platonic) theology has less to do with it, and in fact it has to do more with Catholic bifurcations between nature and grace. Second, I'm more sympathetic to Bunyan's truly deep thoughts about not looking to the things of this world and looking to those of the world to come. I was also very much struck on this reading by how much material stuff is in the Pilgrim's Progress. In fact everything has been turned from spiritual INTO material stuff, and in fact it goes with Bunyan's rejection, not of the material, but of artiface vs. nature. Vanity Fair is a work of gaudy artiface, contrasted with the Valley of Humiliation, the Delectable Mountains, and Beulah. Even so he does not romanticize nature, giving good pictures of frugal households: the Interpreter's house and the Palace Beautiful notably which are noted for their dainties and meats. So I suppose I have to retract all the gnostic-speak with one exception: I still think his descriptions of heaven go on a bit too long and are not as good as Dante or the book of Revelation.
Reading it in the middle of a Richard Hooker translation project is especially illuminating and Bunyan's narrow sectarianism does come out, but Lewis was right: the seriousness of the mortal situation is what made Bunyan so great. And compared to Grace Abounding, this stuff is tame.
In fact, Bunyan is almost a Marxist! Nearly all the good guys are simple, lower-class, Bible-thumping sorts, and all the bad guys like Worldly Wiseman, By-Ends, Formalist and Hypocrisy, and so on are all rich and external conformers. This makes Doug Jones' critique so ironic and in fact the biggest criticism I would make of the book is Bunyan's concept of "the world." I think that the early church fathers, the first Reformers, and 20th century Evangelicals are all under persecution and it's damaged our theology. The antithesis threatens to mean that the mainstream culture will always oppose the faith (or at least the faithful distinctively outside that mainstream) and that therefore when the two come into conflict, we can know pretty well in advance who's right simply by consulting the tribe. History does not bear this out: Christians have been wrong on all sorts of issues and all tribes and denominations have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The "world" means the world of unbelief and we apply the typology properly, not when we see two cultures in conflict, but when we suffer for the sake of Christ because of a "company" that blacklists us. That "company" need not be in the majority or even the dominant element in society. It might be an insidious minority trying to stir up trouble. Bringing this back to Pilgrim's Progress, I think Bunyan makes a lot of great hits on his enemies, often hitting their patterns of speech and hypocritical externalism dead center. I think that if we looked in the Anglican church of his time, we would draw the same conclusions as he did.
Nevertheless, I say, his bias against the Church of England sometimes comes across as mere partisanship; his attacks on externalism seem uncharitable; his hatred of gaudiness and ceremony sound like the grumblings of the man who sees no reasons for all this pomp and show; and his insistence on standing for the word of God despite all concerns about public peace are ominous and sometimes obstinate.
Even so, I think it's a great book and it's great because literature to be great need not be precisely theologically accurate. Great literature must capture life with as much clarity as possible. In fact, Bunyan's partisanship is one of his greatest strengths. I still like what I wrote about the allegory not being primarily valuable as a didactic, except perhaps in the theological bits (which I actually like very much). However, I do not go to Pilgrim's Progress to be edified, but delighted and this time around I was struck by how clever the book is, especially in the first part.
If you talked to a Jew or even a Catholic, pilgrimage meant going to the city of Jerusalem to sacrifice in the Temple or kiss the saints' relics; no more of that now. Bunyan has turned it all into a permanent journey from which there will be no return. We wander through "the wilderness of this world" and we hope to reach the promised land. In the first part, the invention is non-stop: Despond, Sinai, archers at the Gate, hill difficulty, the lions, Apollyon, the Valley of the Shadow of Death, Vanity Fair (how many books spawn both a literary classic AND a magazine), Giant Despair, and the river of Death itself are all visual, memorable, and often strange twists or extrapolations of small Biblical phrases. Even the second part, for all its repetitiveness, invented the muck-raker.
Bunyan also says in the introduction of the second part that his prose is difficult to imitate and there are so many wonderful words in here and even a few insults (how could I forget that he called Hopeful a clamshell head?) that are so true to life. Okay, the characters are allegorical, but they so often talk as if they weren't and their language is so homely that it betaketh itself most lovingly to the mind.
So the allegory is somewhat deceptive, behind the labels are the realities of Bunyan's current day. One cannot get into the Pilgrim's Progress without breathing, at least for a little, the air of the Sixteenth century. I can't think of any better recommendation on which to end this little reflection than to urge you to get a copy of Alan Parry's illustrated Dangerous Journey and to read it aloud to your kids. Not only is it a beautiful copy, but it will give your kids an opening into another time that is rarely so accessible. Lewis said that Bunyan got an education simply by pursuing the Christian faith; I think reading Bunyan will do the same.
October 28, 2017
this was a true story!
April 27, 2023
It was the first schoolbook that I wish would never end. Christian and Christiana sadly are not Patio Baptists like we are. By the way I would suggest that you should consider reading this.
December 16, 2020
We have been working through this book slowly, but only by my limiting how many pages a day we actually get to read. If I let them the boys would have been done with this in a week! They loved it and made so many Biblical connections. Far more than I had thought, honestly. We have been drawing a map of Christian's journey and very often in casual conversation the boys bring him up.
I'm very thankful for this illustrated version.
I'm very thankful for this illustrated version.
April 22, 2022
Grew up with this one and got to read it to Caleb. We both enjoyed it.
December 6, 2021
Read for confirmation retreat a couple nights ago
March 20, 2022
Read in May 2015, July 2016, June 2018, December 2019, February 2021, March 2022, and many times before.
Fantastic illustrations that capture the young imagination, very well-abridged text that stays true to the original, and of course, one of the best stories ever written. I still love this volume years later.
Fantastic illustrations that capture the young imagination, very well-abridged text that stays true to the original, and of course, one of the best stories ever written. I still love this volume years later.
December 12, 2018
Read aloud to the boys. Seems like a great introduction to the classic, which I think we're not *quite* ready for yet. The illustrations are very well done.
My boys (7.5, 5.5, 2.5) enjoyed it quite a bit.
My boys (7.5, 5.5, 2.5) enjoyed it quite a bit.
August 9, 2021
My 3 year old son really loved this story, even though it was fairly text heavy for his age & most of the vocabulary was over his head. I stopped often to recap what was happening & he was especially intrigued by the art work. It would have been too scary for me at that age, but every time we read, he would beg for just a couple more pages. So happy to introduce him to one of the most epic stories!
June 2, 2023
We read this as a read aloud for school. This was perfect length for the kids. The drawing were perfect. I loved that the illustrator made “wicked” people appear ugly and those traveling to Christ normal looking.
I enjoyed that the author also included a little bio on John Bunyan. All in all this was a great children’s version of the Pilgrim’s Progress.
Now to go read the full Pilgrim’s Progress.
I enjoyed that the author also included a little bio on John Bunyan. All in all this was a great children’s version of the Pilgrim’s Progress.
Now to go read the full Pilgrim’s Progress.
June 7, 2023
My kids (aged 7.5 and 9) absolutely loved this book. The illustrations were intense and so engaging. The author did an excellent job of mixing the original old English which Paul Bunyan wrote with a simplified version, but he kept the whimsical nature of the work intact. I was surprised at how well my kids picked up on the intended themes and Christian allegories. Highly recommend!
March 30, 2018
Read this through with Tanzen. The language is archaic, but I think it is worth reading and explaining to children. We will read it again, I am sure.
October 3, 2018
Eli: 4⭐️, Abby 3⭐️, Grace 2.5⭐️
February 12, 2019
Wonderful!! My children listened to me read it aloud in two sessions! One of the best stories ever written, hands down.
April 16, 2021
Read it with my kids. They loved it and the illustrations were so fun to look at while we read.
July 18, 2022
Read this to the three older kids (3,5,6) and all of them loved it. Such a good read!
September 14, 2022
2022 - This was the third summer that my husband has read Dangerous Journey aloud to the family. It's a tradition I hope continues for years to come.
February 19, 2024
Excellent intro for children to Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress
July 15, 2019
An old story renewed; with beautiful graphic illustrations, much of the original cadence and the same powerful reminder that the life of faith is indeed a dangerous journey.
While the book has great read-aloud potential, the pictures might be disturbing for very young children.
While the book has great read-aloud potential, the pictures might be disturbing for very young children.
November 30, 2023
The whole family loved this version! Highly recommend!
March 21, 2020
Abbreviates the Pilgrims Progress without losing its flavor or depth. Wonderful way to introduce kids to Bunyan's amazing allegory - much better than the CGI feature film that came out recently.
August 2, 2020
Try number two. This is a difficult book to leave a review for. This book does have merit in that it speaks to all of the pitfalls laid out by the devil to trip a Christian up throughout Life. It also addresses the worldly secular influences that can harm a Christian. My problems with this book lie in the theology and the dark and mature content. Memoria Press uses it for fourth grade literature study, but I will be returning it to them.
This theology focuses on how we get ourselves to God instead of how God comes to us for our salvation. As an LCMS parishioner, a Christian woman about to School her fourth grade daughter, I find this book disturbing.
At the end of the book the wife of the main character takes her own journey with the help of a male guide and protector. This will not sit well with modern feminist, but I have no problem with it. It is more true to how Christ would work in our lives. If you have a child under the age of 14, I suggest you read this yourself and decide if it will be right for your family, but beware the theology.
This theology focuses on how we get ourselves to God instead of how God comes to us for our salvation. As an LCMS parishioner, a Christian woman about to School her fourth grade daughter, I find this book disturbing.
At the end of the book the wife of the main character takes her own journey with the help of a male guide and protector. This will not sit well with modern feminist, but I have no problem with it. It is more true to how Christ would work in our lives. If you have a child under the age of 14, I suggest you read this yourself and decide if it will be right for your family, but beware the theology.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 25, 2020
Read through this once over the course of a couple of months and then followed along today as we watched the movie, which is really just an audiobook with the pictures of the book zoomed in. We enjoyed the story both slowly and in one chunk. Definitely one to share with your family.
March 23, 2008
i'd read/had this book read to me by my mother when i was young. i'm not entirely sure at what specific age. i recently ordered my own copy and found the story applicable as more of a universal truth than just one that applies only to those of the christian faith. i ordered it more for the illustrations than the writings. i'm definitely glad to have a copy, both for sentimental reasons and for the wisdom contained in it. the story is simply told, but the struggles that christian endures can be compared to those of every man or woman who is yearning to improve themselves and their lives by following a more ethical moral code.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 211 reviews