BECAUSE NOTHING LOOKS LIKE GOD

According to the authors’ note to parents and teachers, the Kushners address the often unspoken questions of young children who hear about God in church. This multicultural, nondenominational, and non-sectarian attempt poses three questions: “Where is God?,” “What does God look like?,” and “How does God make things happen?” There are various answers to these questions, ranging from images such as God “is in the first ripening tomato, and in cookies just fresh from the oven,” to the ideas that God is “wherever we let God in.” In answer to what God looks like, the authors write, “God looks like nothing,” but there are many things people cannot see and yet they know they are there. The premise being that God is in every aspect of life and that God makes things happen through people’s acts of caring about each other and their community. There is no mention of prayer, houses of worship, or any of the traditional forms of religious life. Majewski’s illustrations are bright and sunny, depicting families of color, the young, the old, in the US, and in a few world communities. The picture-book format is appropriate to the very young child, but the text, although simple, may have concepts more easily understood by older children. Parents who believe that God is within all aspects of the spiritual and temporal world may find this book helpful as a discussion starter, but it’s not much more than that. (Picture book. 3-6)