A little girl and her younger brother learn to accept their grandmother’s death in this rhyming story that explains the concepts of God, Jesus and Heaven in simplified terms for younger children.
The unnamed girl narrates the story, noting their sadness at their grandma’s death and searching for answers by reading the Bible to her brother. She reads from the Book of John, paraphrasing the familiar text that promises that “there are many mansions in my Father’s house.” The realistic setting of the two children in the boy’s bedroom segues into an interpretation of Heaven as a magical, fanciful place filled with smiling children and dancing animals. The sweet, sometimes sing-song verse describes Heaven as a place where no one is old or sick and where children can safely swim with sharks or fly with eagles. Bryant’s cheerful watercolor illustrations imagine Heaven as a sort of pleasant amusement park with Jesus as the headmaster and where children ride on the backs of flying sheep and climb trees with pigs and frogs. The final pages present a conservative Christian philosophy of confession and acceptance of Jesus as one’s personal savior, with the concluding pages offering a prayer for children and the relevant verses from the Book of John. Additional materials include an explanatory letter to parents and other adults, questions for adults to use with children, Bible verse references incorporated into the text and an “RSVP to Jesus” for use by the child reader.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-310-71601-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Zonderkidz
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
Categories: CHILDREN'S RELIGIOUS FICTION
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The Berenstains’ son adds a Mother’s Day entry to the series, continuing the adventures of the Bear family with a religious focus.
Brother, Sister, and Honey want to do something special for Mama for Mother’s Day, and Papa helps them think of just the thing—brunch at the Bear Country Inn after church—and they can invite Grizzly Gran, too. On the ride to church, Mama points out all the ways other families are celebrating their own mothers even though these community helpers are working on the holiday: Officer Marguerite’s children bring her flowers as she directs traffic, and Mrs. Ben’s children are pitching in with farm chores. Indeed, the trip to church is eye-opening for the cubs, who never realized that some of their neighbors even had children. During the church service, Preacher Brown thanks God for the gift of mothers and quotes the Bible: “Your mother was like a vine in your vineyard planted by the water; it was fruitful and full of branches.” While the illustrations are the same as ever (the smiling bears haven’t aged a bit!), the series seems to have moved away from addressing a variety of families.
This Mother’s Day tale is rather limited in its audience to those who can afford fancy brunch after their own religious services, contrary to its apparent message that being together is all that matters. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-310-74869-4
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Zonderkidz
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
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God’s address to the Hebrew exiles from the Old Testament book of Jeremiah is repurposed in this cheery picture book that emphasizes children’s future careers.
In this decontextualized interpretation of the well-known verse, God narrates the text in a first-person, chatty style (“Hey, YOU!”) that urges children to discover their particular purposes in life, specifically related to career choices (“what I CREATED YOU to do”). The story begins with a fantastical factory in the clouds, controlled by engineers, and the disembodied hand of God pointing at readers. A sort of assembly line with seated, staring children scrolls across the bottoms of the pages, with the boys and girls receiving their professional wardrobes from robotic arms. Above the conveyor belt, smiling children are shown in various jobs wearing relevant career attire, with careful inclusion of children of many ethnicities as well as girls in science, medical, and construction jobs. While the text states that children will “find that one thing / that you love the most,” its overall thrust when combined with the illustrations implies that God chooses a profession for each child at birth and that children should be working toward that profession from an early age. The concluding page urges children to stop reading the book and “go out and find my big plans for YOU.” Readers with unemployed parents or parents toiling in miserable, unhappy jobs will be forgiven for wondering just where in God’s plan their families fit.
With this ahistorical interpretation, this book shows a disregard for both free will and the gradual maturation of talents and personalities. (Picture book/religion. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-310-72410-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Zonderkidz
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
Categories: CHILDREN'S RELIGIOUS FICTION
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