A FIRST BOOK ABOUT GOD

The concept of God explained in terms of the child's own emotional experience the warm, happy fealing associated with parents' love, fun at playtime, the protective kindly impulse toward a toy animal, the exhilaration of being in the beautiful outdoors and the feeling of satisfaction one fells after being good. God is everywhere as a parent, companion, creator of the world, and helper. Anger, fright and unpleasant feelings come only when one forgets God. Although this last suggestion of moral compulsion may have some theological undertone, the book on the whole is a satisfactory presentation of a difficult concept in terms the fundamentalists will wholeheartedly approve. Almost inevitably, there are times when the text gets a bit stickily sentimental, but in the main this is avoided by holding to a very simple conception in the child's own terms. The text is easy and smooth for reading aloud with rhythmic repetition and simple progression of ideas.