The Friend Who Forgives Coloring and Activity Book - Paperback

The Friend Who Forgives Coloring and Activity Book — Peter’s Failure and Jesus’ Forgiveness

Every child knows what it feels like to do something wrong.

To let someone down. To say something they wish they could take back. To fail the people who matter most to them — and to wonder whether those people will ever truly forgive them and love them the same way again.

The story of Peter — one of Jesus’ closest friends, who denied even knowing him three times on the night he needed him most — is a story that speaks directly into that experience. It is a story of real, devastating failure. And it is a story of something even more real and even more powerful: the forgiveness of a friend who never gives up.

The Friend Who Forgives Coloring and Activity Book brings this extraordinary story to life for young children through 32 pages of coloring, puzzles, mazes, and activities — based on the double award-winning storybook by Dan DeWitt and illustrated by Catalina Echeverri. It is a resource that helps children not just hear the story of Peter and Jesus but engage with it actively, imaginatively, and personally — in a way that makes the truth of the gospel genuinely memorable and deeply felt.

The Story Behind the Activity Book

The Friend Who Forgives is one of the most beloved titles in the Tales That Tell the Truth series — a double award-winning storybook that has introduced thousands of children to the story of Peter’s denial and Jesus’ restoration with warmth, honesty, and genuine gospel depth.

The coloring and activity book brings that same story to life in a different and complementary format — one that invites children to participate actively rather than simply listen or read. Through coloring the characters and scenes of the story, working through puzzles that reinforce its key moments, navigating mazes that engage their imaginations, and completing activities that connect the story to their own experience, children are given the opportunity to inhabit the story rather than merely observe it.

This active engagement is not just more fun than passive listening — it is more effective. Children who color Peter’s face on the night of his denial, who trace the path back to the beach where Jesus restored him, and who complete activities that ask them to think about forgiveness in their own lives are children who are truly processing the story at a level that words alone cannot always reach.

What the Activity Book Covers

Across its 32 carefully designed pages, the activity book takes children through the key moments of Peter’s story:

• Peter’s closeness to Jesus — one of his most trusted friends and disciples
• The night of betrayal — Peter’s three denials and the weight of what he had done
• The darkness of failure — what it feels like to have let down the person you love most
• The resurrection morning — when everything changes and hope is reborn
• The beach restoration — where Jesus meets Peter not with condemnation but with grace, reinstating him with the same question asked three times: Do you love me?
• The truth of forgiveness — that Jesus is the friend who forgives completely, restores fully, and never gives up on the people he loves

Each section of the activity book is designed to help children understand not just what happened but what it means — and what it means for them personally when they fail, when they feel shame, and when they wonder whether they can be forgiven and loved again.

What This Activity Book Will Help Your Child Do

• Engage actively and imaginatively with the story of Peter’s failure and Jesus’ forgiveness through coloring, puzzles, mazes, and activities
• Understand the gospel truth of forgiveness in a personal, emotionally resonant way — through a story they can identify with
• Process the experience of their own failures and wrongdoings through the lens of the grace Jesus showed to Peter
• Develop a genuine, early understanding of who Jesus is — as the friend who forgives completely and loves unconditionally
• Build lasting Bible memories through active, multi-sensory engagement with Scripture’s most moving stories
• Encounter the meaning of Easter — the resurrection that makes forgiveness possible — through a story that brings it personally home

Who Should Use This Book?

The Friend Who Forgives Coloring and Activity Book is ideal for:

• Parents wanting a creative, gospel-centred Easter activity to do with their young children at home
• Sunday school teachers and children’s ministry workers looking for an Easter resource that combines fun activities with genuine biblical depth
• Churches planning Lent and Easter programmes for children and wanting a resource that engages young people with the meaning of the season
• Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and family friends looking for a meaningful Easter gift for a young child
• Home-educating families wanting to incorporate Easter Bible teaching into their curriculum in a creative and child-friendly way
• Children’s hospitals, libraries, and Christian organisations wanting an accessible, engaging Christian resource for young children
• Any family in India wanting to help their children understand the meaning of Easter — the forgiveness and restoration that Jesus’ death and resurrection make possible

Perfect for Lent and Easter

The Friend Who Forgives Coloring and Activity Book is specifically identified as ideal for the Lent and Easter season — making it one of the most thoughtful and purposeful Easter resources available for children.

During Lent and Holy Week, families and churches are naturally thinking about the events surrounding Jesus’ death and resurrection. This activity book gives children a way to engage with those events through the very personal, very relatable story of Peter — a friend who failed Jesus completely and was forgiven completely — making the meaning of Easter tangible, emotional, and personally relevant for young hearts and minds.

About the Tales That Tell the Truth Series

The Friend Who Forgives Coloring and Activity Book is part of the celebrated Tales That Tell the Truth series — a collection of beautifully illustrated children’s storybooks and accompanying resources that present the great truths of the Christian faith in ways that are accessible, engaging, and genuinely gospel-centred for young children.

Each title in the series is designed to help children encounter the real story of the Bible — not as a collection of moral fables but as the true account of what God has done in Jesus Christ. The series has won multiple awards and is widely regarded as one of the finest collections of gospel-centred children’s Christian literature currently available.

Other titles in the Tales That Tell the Truth series are available at forthetruth.in.

About the Authors

Dan DeWitt is a theologian, pastor, and author who writes with genuine warmth and theological care for children and families. His storybook The Friend Who Forgives has won two awards and introduced thousands of children to the story of Peter and Jesus with honesty, grace, and gospel clarity.

Catalina Echeverri is the illustrator whose warm, distinctive, and beautifully characterful artwork brings the Tales That Tell the Truth series to life — creating visual worlds that children love to inhabit and return to again and again.

The Friend Who Never Gives Up

Every child will fail. Every child will know the weight of having done something wrong, let someone down, or said something they cannot take back. And every child needs to know — really know, in their bones — that there is a friend who will not walk away because of it.

That is the truth at the heart of Peter’s story. And it is the truth at the heart of the gospel.

The Friend Who Forgives Coloring and Activity Book is a beautiful, accessible, and genuinely moving way to help the youngest children begin to grasp that truth — not just with their minds but with their imaginations, their hands, and their hearts.

Because the friend who forgives Peter is the same friend who forgives them. And that is the most important thing any child can ever know.