The Gospel Library Is Amazing — And There’s Still One Thing It Can’t Do for Your Kids

I want to start by saying something I mean with my whole heart: the Gospel Library app is one of the most remarkable spiritual tools the Church has ever given us. Free. Comprehensive. Beautifully designed. I use it almost every single day.

Every scripture in the standard works. Every General Conference talk since 1971. The full Come, Follow Me curriculum updated every week. The Friend. The Liahona. Hymns. Children’s songs. Notes, highlights, tags, study notebooks — all synced across every device in our home. It’s the kind of resource that previous generations of faithful members could only dream about.

I am genuinely in awe of it.

And The Friend? It’s been a treasure for LDS families since 1971. Beautifully illustrated stories. Age-appropriate activities. Messages from prophets and apostles written especially for children. It’s as good as children’s gospel content gets. I’ve read it to my girls more times than I can count.

So if it’s so good — why did I start Little Scripture Travelers?

Because some nights, things just weren’t landing.

I’d sit down with my daughters for our Come, Follow Me lesson. I’d read the story. I’d share the scripture. I’d ask the questions the lesson suggested. And sometimes — not every night, but enough nights — I could see their little eyes glazing over. Not because they didn’t care. Because there was no one like them in the story.

Here’s what I know from my background in family behavioral science: children don’t primarily learn values and principles from information. They learn them from identification. They watch a character, attach to that character, root for that character — and then, almost without realizing it, they start making the choices that character makes.

Think about it. Why do kids who love Moana suddenly start talking about finding their own way? Why do kids who love Alma the Younger’s story get wide-eyed when someone talks about being forgiven? They don’t just hear the story. They become part of it, through the character they’ve attached to.

That’s not a criticism. That’s just a different job. The Church’s resources are a library. An extraordinary, inspired, irreplaceable library. But a library isn’t the same as a reading buddy sitting next to your child saying, “Here’s how I felt when Nephi’s brothers were mean to him. What would you have done?”

That’s where Beau, Scout, Willow, and Wren come in.

Every Little Scripture Travelers story brings your child into the scripture moment through one of our four characters. Beau the Brave, who leads with courage and faith. Scout the Seeker, who asks the questions every curious kid is already thinking. Willow the Warm, whose compassion makes the tender moments feel safe. And Wren the Wonderer, who slows down and notices what everyone else rushes past.

Your child will find themselves in one of these characters — probably a different one on different nights, depending on what they’re going through. And when they do, the scripture stops being a story about people who lived a long time ago and becomes a story about them.

But there’s another piece — and this one comes from research.

Researchers who study family resilience have identified one of the most powerful predictors of whether children grow up happy, strong, and able to handle whatever life throws at them. It’s not grades. It’s not extracurriculars. It’s not even a two-parent household.

It’s whether children know their family’s stories.

The more a child knows about where their family came from — the struggles, the faith, the hard moments that were overcome — the more resilient and anchored they are. Researchers call this the intergenerational narrative, and it turns out it’s one of the most protective forces in a child’s life.

The Gospel Library connects your child to the scriptures. It doesn’t connect the scriptures to your grandmother who crossed the plains, or your grandfather who was the first member in your family, or your own story of the night you prayed and felt Heavenly Father answer.

Little Scripture Travelers does. Every story includes prompts that invite your family’s stories into the lesson — ancestor stories, parent stories, the real experiences that make “likening the scriptures” more than a Sunday School answer.

This is a companion, not a competition.

I want to say this clearly: I still use the Gospel Library every day. I still read The Friend with my kids. The Church’s resources are foundational, and nothing we create is meant to replace them.

What Little Scripture Travelers gives you is the piece that makes those resources land in your child’s heart instead of just their head — the characters they can love, the feelings they can navigate, and the family stories that make the gospel personal instead of just historical.

The Gospel Library is the library. We’re the lantern your family carries into it — and then, when the story is done, you close in your own words to Heavenly Father. Because that part should never be scripted.

If you’ve ever sat down for family scripture study and felt like something was missing — not from the scriptures, but from the way they were connecting with your kids — that’s the gap we built this for.

Come see what Beau, Scout, Willow, and Wren are reading tonight. 🌙

— Levi
Founder, Little Scripture Travelers
Dad. Believer. Still figuring it out one bedtime at a time.