Ken McCardell grew up in Royal Oak, Michigan, the youngest of five children. He went to a Christian elementary school, where the seeds of faith were planted. As a youth he was a state champion wrestler for the Boys and Girls Club of Southeastern Michigan with the Bloomer Club in Detroit. Much of his time growing up was spent with friends playing on a variety of sporting teams.

Ken graduated from Rochester Adams High School and went on to receive a finance degree from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. During his college years he spent time as a jet-ski tour guide in the Virgin Islands as well as a financial analyst for the Comerica bank purchasing department.

Beginning in 2002, Ken spent several years as the manager of a cattle ranch in the Bitterroot Valley in Montana, transitioning it from conventional to organic and humane production methods. While in Montana, he began writing poetry, which eventually took a spiritual turn and became today’s BibleRhymes.

Jason: So I see you have a few books out right now, tell us more about your projects?

Ken McCardell: The project garnering just about all of my attention in one way or another right now is the BibleRhymes children’s book series that I am authoring. In 2007 the first two books in the BibleRhymes series were released, BibleRhymes’ Creation and BibleRhymes’ Noah and the Ark. In 2008 we’ll be releasing the next two books in the series, BibleRhymes David and Goliath and BibleRhymes’ Christmas Story.

This series of books is being created to serve as a fun and friendly tool to help introduce children to the Bible. All of the pages in the BibleRhymes books are full-page, color pictures that are originally air-brushed and hand-painted by Antonella Chirco. The pictures are accompanied by easy-to-understand, rhythmic poetry that pulls the children into the stories. And the rhymes help the stories to sink in to the children’s minds, which will hopefully help them to develop a long-term affection for the Bible.

Jason: What is BibleRhymes Publishing?

Ken: BibleRhymes Publishing seems to be a challenge laid at my feet by the Good Lord. I developed this company in 2006 in response to something inside me that was telling me to turn Bible stories into stories that children would love to read every night.

In my opinion, if every child grew up with a fondness of the Bible and its truths then the world would be a much friendlier place than it is today. But to get the Bible’s truths into children’s minds, the children would have to prefer reading Bible stories rather than Sponge-Bob or something like that. Bible stories would have to be fun and interesting to a child. And that’s why BibleRhymes came into existence.

Right now the first book in the series BibleRhymes’ Creation is available as a free e-book at BibleRhymes.com. And in the future we’ll be planning on offering the other books in the series as free e-books as well. Our plan is to get our books in front of children’s eyes everywhere; whether it’s with our high-quality hardcovers or our free e-books. We don’t want money being something that’s keeping these Bible stories out of the reach of anybody.

Jason: How hard is it to write children’s books?

Ken: The first book in the BibleRhymes series was the most difficult to write up to this point. Sculpturing the poems into flowing, unforced, rhythmic stories that envelop scriptural truths took more than a few trips to the chalkboard. But once the format was developed (the length of the story, the rhyme scheme…) the book-writing became much easier.

Now I won’t relate the ease of the story-writing to any genius of mine, rather I’d say the Lord wanted another way to get His truths to the world and, thankfully, He’s trying to use me as a tool to help Him do that. And because of this, He’s allowing these BibleRhymes to be told in a way that is making people smile and feel good (that’s what they tell me anyway). But God puts the words into my head and I just write them.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression that it’s been simple to write these books. And I definitely don’t want it to appear that the actual publishing and distribution of a book is any walk-in-the-park. But I’m doing what I love so that makes the whole BibleRhymes project an enjoyable challenge.

Jason: So was this something that you always wanted to do or you kind of fell into this profession?

Ken: I’ve written poetry on and off for the last five to ten years. But to actually produce children’s books is something I’d never seriously contemplated. Christmas 2004 was the first time thoughts of writing any Bible rhymes came into my mind, but the few little poems I wrote then are nothing on the level of the BibleRhymes books.

It was around Christmas of 2005 that I was reading the Bible one afternoon to cure a grumpy mood when I became filled with the unquenchable desire of actually taking Bible stories and developing a rhyming, children’s book from them. My first thought was to compile a group of stories into one book (and I hadn’t even planned on the book being illustrated). Then after showing a few of my poems around I was prompted to take each poem (Bible story) and add enough details to turn it into a book. I wasn’t completely confident that I could do that, but I tried, and it worked.

Then the missing link for a quality book was the lack of artwork. And as the Good Lord always does, He provided. I had gone to a friend’s house for dinner one night, just before I started writing these BibleRhymes. There I met Antonella Chirco, the sister of my friend’s brother-in-law. And not even two months later, when I needed an illustrator, I found out that Antonella was a promising artist. We teamed up and I couldn’t be happier than having her to work with and her artwork a part of the BibleRhymes books.

Jason: What’s next for you and your company?

Ken: Over the next handful of years I’m forecasting a whirlwind of poetry writing, book-tours and the production of at least ten more books in the BibleRhymes series. A gratifying part of this is the invitations to schools that I’ve been receiving which provides me with the opportunity of seeing the smiling little faces that were in mind when this project started. And from Alaska to Florida to Australia, doors have been opened to BibleRhymes and I’ll take pleasure in visiting as many of these places as I can.

Upcoming books in the series will include Daniel and the Lions, Jericho, Joseph’s Coat, The Tower of Babel, Samson and Delilah and many more.

Jason: Tell us something about yourself that we didn’t have time to talk about?

Ken: The BibleRhymes series has enabled me to branch out and pursue my poetry in an array of directions. Projects are now in the works for books covering themes from love poetry to children’s adventure stories.

Some of my free poetry is available at BibleRhymes.com and some of it is even offered on video.

BibleRhymes.com also offers interviews that go further into depth, both on myself and the philosophy behind BibleRhymes.

Jason: How can the people contact you?

Ken: I can be reached at www.biblerhymes.com or www.myspace.com/biblerhymesdotcom where I have contact with readers from around the world and where my blog is also available.