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| Book cover for "Maybe God Is Like That Too" by Jennifer Grant. |
In my quest to find good books to teach my kids about Christianity, I came across this one: Maybe God Is Like That Too, by Jennifer Grant. I love this book and I totally recommend it! Here's my review.
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Basic summary
The book is about a boy who asked his grandma where God is:
"Grandma, does God live in the city?" I ask one morning at breakfast.
"Yes, God is here," she says, "You just need to know where to look."
"Whenever you see love, joy, and peace, God is there," she says, stirring her tea.
"Wherever there's patience, kindness, and goodness, God is there too. When you see faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, that's God's Spirit at work."
Then, as the boy goes about his day, he sees examples of each of these things. And each time, he says, "Maybe God is like that too."
For example, here's the one about love:
At school Grandma hands me my lunch and hugs me close before she says goodbye.
That's what love looks like to me. Maybe God is like that too.
You may have noticed that this list of virtues- love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control- are the fruit of the Spirit, from Galatians 5:22-23.
The book concludes by saying that we can't see God, but we can see God's Spirit working when we see these good qualities in people.
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Most- but not all- of them are about people helping each other
For most of these fruits of the Spirit, the examples in the book are about people doing good things for each other. I love that; I really do believe that is God. (Evangelicals will cringe at this though, because it's just people helping each other, it's not people helping each other because they are motivated by their belief in Jesus. Yes, it's just people whose religious beliefs [or lack thereof] we know nothing about. That's where we see the fruit of the Spirit, in this book.)
But, they're not *all* about the way people treat each other. Look at this one, about joy:
On the swings, I pump so hard I see over the wall into the alley. My friends shout, "Higher! Higher!" as my feet fly way up into the sky.
That's what joy looks like to me. Maybe God is like that too.
This is great! I love this so much! This joy, this happiness, pleasure, this simple uncomplicated enjoyment of life- this is God too. When I was an evangelical, I didn't believe in that- I didn't think happiness or pleasure were good things in and of themselves. I believed that when the bible said joy was a fruit of the Spirit, it meant that when we believe in Jesus, we will naturally feel joy because of it. That Jesus is the only source of "true" joy, and all other happiness should be viewed with suspicion.
But now I believe in something so much bigger than that- I believe that it's just a good and beautiful thing when people thrive and laugh and enjoy their lives. Regardless of whether they believe in God or whatever. (See this post from 2015, I Deserve God's Love.)
And I love how this book has this character just simply enjoying swinging on the swings, and "maybe God is like that too"- not as a means to an end, not as a "we have joy because we believe in God" or "helping others brings joy to all of us"- but that his pleasure is just a good thing, just by itself. I think that's great.
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God's pronouns
This book doesn't use any pronouns for God. As for the examples of people doing good things for each other, some are men and some are women. And the example for "peace" is a quiet classroom (which presumably has no gender). Maybe God is like all of these people and things.
I love this, I love this so much. I believe God contains the full spectrum of gender. No gender is any more "God" than any other gender. So to not use any pronouns for God, and then give examples of both men and women who are like God- yeah, this is exactly what I want to see in a kids' book. (It would be even better if it had nonbinary people too.)
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"Maybe"
Why does this book keep saying "Maybe God is like that too"? There's this constant uncertainty, this questioning, this feeling that the boy is kind of making his own observations and speculation about what God is like, rather than having some authority figure saying "here is the right answer."
I think this is great; I always tell my son that different people have different opinions about God, and some people don't believe in God. I want him to think about it on his own and come up with beliefs that make sense to him.
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This book really is the Christianity I believe in
I was SO EXCITED when I read this book. This is the Christianity I believe in, and I am SO INTO IT. Usually when I read children's Christian books/ bible story books, it's an exercise in uh, cringing and trying to decide if I can tolerate whatever cute little lesson the book tries to turn a bible story into, trying to decide if there's enough good in there that I can salvage something meaningful to talk with my son about.
But this book is different. This book didn't make me feel like "okay, it's not that bad." This book had me so excited, from beginning to end, like "YES! THIS is what I believe!"
So if you're looking for a children's book that shows this kind of Christianity, I very much recommend this one.
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