A Book Review from Books At a Glance
by Kristin Stiles
A three-word question: Is God real? Throughout history the greatest thinkers have struggled with this question, and yet Joshua Cooley is going to address this most profound topic not with the philosophers, theologians, or academia of our day, but with children ages four to seven!
Where does one begin when trying to answer the question of the reality of God with a small child? Any educator would immediately say that you need to take the abstract and make it concrete. Of course, that is easier said than done. Cooley does a magnificent job, though, starting with what is familiar to children and leading them to logical conclusions about God.
This story begins on a windy day in autumn. A man is raking leaves with his small son when this boy raises the great question. The father defers answering and takes his son to the park to fly kites. After achieving some success at this activity, the father flips the script and asks the son if the wind is real. When the boy replies in the affirmative, the dad asks him how he knows. The boy answers with examples of what he sees and feels the wind do. The father finally addresses the initial question about God in the same terms. We know that God is real by what He does: the work of creation, the reflection of Himself in man who was made in His image, the very words of God given to us in the Bible, and the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. “[W]e know He is real because of what He does.”
Cooley shares this story with a delightful mix of prose and poetry. The rhyming lines are fun to read while the unrhymed sections seem to lend a bit more gravity to the evidences of God’s existence. The story is accompanied by beautiful pastel illustrations that are such a pleasure to explore.
All in all, this is a wonderful book which makes a very strong case for God’s existence while also describing His character. Additionally, there are gospel truths that are weaved throughout the story which point children to their need of a Savior. I would highly recommend this book to parents who have inquisitive children or would just like to help their children to be able to answer a question that has stymied great thinkers throughout history.
Kristin Stiles is a home-school mom, a Sunday School teacher, and helps lead the “Young, Reading, & Reformed” children’s ministry at Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia, PA.
Buy the books
I CAN'T BELIEVE MY EYES, by Joshua Cooley