GOD WENT TO BEAUTY SCHOOL

Rylant takes two tropes—God as one of us and God’s presence in everything—and turns them into wry and radiant poetry. God goes to beauty school “because He’d always loved hands— / hands were some of the best things / He’d ever done.” God buys a couch and makes spaghetti, goes to the doctor and gets arrested, and in each poem Rylant works out with passionate tenderness what that would mean, and how it might tickle the fancy, and that it would tug at our humanity. When God gets a cold, He wants someone to bring Him comic books and juice (Mother Teresa does). When He sees the whole world from the top of Mount Everest and it breaks his heart, “Nobody’d want to hit / the guy next to him / on top of Mount Everest. / ‘Next time,’ thought God. / ‘Next time.’ ” A wildly imagined concept; Rylant fans as well as thoughtful young readers will be beguiled. (Poetry. 10 )