It’s a tiny paperback, smaller than your hand. It’s called “The Little Red Answer Book,” and the cover shows dozens of friendly teenage faces.

It’s not easy to tell, at first glance, that you’re even holding a copy of the New Testament.

About 200,000 copies are given away every year by the Gideons International in Canada to Grade 5 students, using the public schools as a distribution network.

Only a few school boards, in large cities like Toronto and Ottawa, decline the offer.

And it’s that 64-year-old arrangement — recently endorsed by six votes to four at the Waterloo Region District School Board — that is causing so much controversy and upset here.

The school board policy says that religious non-instructional materials can be distributed through the schools, but only if they aren’t proselytizing.

Yet a letter to readers at the beginning of the book advises that they “read prayerfully.

“Pray before you read and afterwards,” the letter says. “Ask God to open your mind to understand His Word. Ask Him to reveal to you Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord.”

Paul Mercer, executive director of the Guelph-based Gideons International in Canada, says that if the school board finds that note objectionable, he’ll try to fix it.

“If that’s offensive to some, let’s do something to make it un-offensive,” he said. “We’re certainly open to that.

“We believe everyone around the globe should have access to the Bible and when they read it, they can make up their own minds.

“Maybe there’s a way to solve this thing without people getting angry,” he said.

The Gideons have already modified their offerings. Some versions of their New Testament, have a prayer at the end, which is suggested for readers who aren’t sure how to pray. The prayer contains the statement that “the Lord Jesus Christ died for my sins on the cross and was raised for my justification”

But in the version that goes to local schools, that prayer has been removed and the page is blank.

However, these changes don’t carry much weight with the rising tide of opinion that contends the public schools are no place for distribution of any religious text.

Opposition continues, even though the decision has been made for this year. The books will be sent out — to families who indicated that they would like one — in the New Year.

Two men from Ayr, Scott Colwell and David Jankins, both of them fathers with children in the public schools, have launched an online petition asking the school board to halt the practice.

“I truly believe in the separation of church and state,” said Jenkins.

“I don’t think our board members are representing their schools or their constituents in the manner that they should.”

The petition can be accessed at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/wrdsb/

Opponents of the Bible distribution also contend that the school board has not followed its own rules.

One of those rules decrees that trustees will review the religious materials to make sure they do not proselytize, and also that they don’t discriminate against or denigrate any group that is protected by the Ontario Human Rights Code.

But newly elected board chair Kathleen Woodcock said that trustees weren’t given copies of the Gideon New Testament to review this year. And no meeting was scheduled for them to discuss it.

“We’re not getting the information we need,” said Woodcock, who voted against distributing the books.

“We should have had that information,” she said. “It should have been provided.”