The story of Scripture

2009 Books Issue | When Sally Lloyd-Jones lost her job, her career as an author began | Marvin Olasky

James Allen Walker for WORLD

Sally Lloyd-Jones is a British-born writer of wonderful children's books, most notably The Jesus Storybook Bible, which has sold well over 100,000 copies and shows better than many theological texts how everything in the Bible points to Christ.

Were you an imaginative child? I'm told I was always dreaming. They would have the children stand up in front at church and sing, and you could always tell the children who were really joining in and paying attention from the ones who were just staring into space. That was me—my sister was the one doing all the singing. I was always in another world.

Why did you decide 20 years ago to move from London to New York City? A New York job I saw advertised at a bookseller's in London described a job like the one I was already doing, and I thought, "Oh, that would be an adventure." I had always wanted my life to be like an adventure, and I was ready for one. I thought, "I can go for a year; there's nothing wrong with that." At the time I was thinking that it was probably not a good career move, but I imagined myself years later telling some grandchildren, "You know, I nearly went to America," and that was the end of the story. I thought, "Oh, that's awful. At least I can go and if it's awful, I can say that it didn't work out and come back."