Children’s Book Review and GIVEAWAY!!
I’ve recently had the opportunity to review the God Gave Us So Much limited edition 3-book Treasury by Lisa Tawn Bergren. (**I received a free copy of this book to review.**)
God Gave Us So Much. By Lisa Tawn Bergren. Art by Laura J. Bryant.
We were already familiar with Little Cub, the polar bear, from the stories God Gave Us You and God Gave Us Two-which we love. This Treasury includes 3 new stories with Little Cub and her family; God Gave Us the World, God Gave Us Love, and God Gave us Heaven. As the titles imply, these are solidly Christian-based children’s stories addressing biblical questions about creation, family relationships, and heaven with beautiful and engaging art work by Laura Bryant. These stories are an amazing collection for any Christian home, offering a simple example for parents (like me) that struggle with how to relate complex biblical themes age-appropirately to young children. The illustrations were engaging to our 3 and 4 year olds and the messages were thought-provoking for our 6 year old.
The Ladybug remembers enough with the pictures as prompts to keep telling them the story again and again as if she’s reading it to them.
God Gave Us the World uses a bear family trip to a local museum to help Little Cub explore the diversity of creation and the almighty power of God as the Creator. As Mama Bear explains to Little Cub’s endless questioning, “God created our world and everything in it, because it’s in his natural to create. Understanding that is part of why he put us here…to serve and worship him, our amazing God, who gave us this amazing world.” At nearly 30 pages, the prose was a little long too long to hold the boys’ interest all the way through; however, they were in love with the pictures, which gave me plenty of time to read it to the Ladybug. Near the end there was a valuable tie in to environmental stewardship too, as Mama Bear explained that “We have to take care of our world. It’s God’s gift to us. He’d be sad if we hurt it.”
The Cowboy liked to just sit and look at the pictures over and over.
God Gave Us Love is a beautiful conversation between Little Cub and her Grampa about showing God’s love to others, even when we don’t feel like it. Using simple examples from their own little family, Grampa explains that “while we want to love others as God loves us, we don’t always feel like loving them. But when we choose to, it’s always the right thing.” This story did an amazing job of breaking deep and complex themes into relatable situations which completely engaged both the Ladybug and the Cowboy.
And this book doesn’t back down from the tough questions, either. Grampa dives right in on “How do we know God loves us?” and “Could we ever do something to make God not love us?” This story alone would convince me to include the 3-book Treasury in our family library.
The illustrations are so beautiful.
The final book in God Gave Us So Much Treasury is God Gave Us Heaven. I considered this one of the most biblically sound views of heaven I’ve seen for young children. Little Cub is spending some special one-on-one time with her Papa when she asks the seemingly simple question “what’s heav’n?” Papa Bear doesn’t shrug her question off, or paint some silly pictures of eating ice cream and playing games all day. Using a children’s interpretation of scripture from the New International Version (NIV) Bible, he explains that heaven is all about basking in the glory of God and that it’s so much better than anything we have now and anything we could possibly imagine. And the author leaves no doubt to readers that Jesus is the only way to get there.
He's a bit of a bookworm...wonder where he got that from?
This would make a great addition to your family library or a great gift for new or expecting parents. And, thanks to Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing Group, and Blogging for Books, I’m so excited to have one copy to offer as a GIVEAWAY to my readers!
To enter: Leave a comment here telling me what your favorite children’s book is (be sure to include your email to be contacted if you win!).
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Entries will close Friday, January 14, 2011 at Midnight. Winner will be chosen via random.org and announced on Monday, January 17, 2011. Good Luck!
This sounds like a wonderful series. Wesley’s favorite “first” book was Touch and Feel Kitten and now he likes anything with trucks. My favorite book when I was little was called Sky High. Mom said she had read it to me so much that I knew it and could tell her the story without being able to actually read the words.
Ohhh I love this and want to get them for my little one! My favorite book was “Are you My mother?” but Dr. Seuss! jessie.justin.szmanda@gmail.com
I also follow you on Google 🙂
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We have God Gave Us You, so I know we’d really enjoy this as well! One of my favorite children’s books is Frog & Toad Together 🙂
I really like God Gave Us You too! Its such a beautiful way to explain your child’s birth in an age appropriate way, and still simply beautiful as a story too.
I love to read “This Little Prayer of Mine” with my children. Thanks for the great giveaway 🙂
mrsjohnson1982 at yahoo dot com
I follow with GFC. Username: missreneer 🙂
mrsjohnson1982 at yahoo dot com
I am following VA_Grown on Twitter.
Username: missreneer 🙂
mrsjohnson1982 at yahoo dot com
Right now my daughter’s favorite books involve Biscuit the puppy or Clifford the Big Red Dog. 🙂 My son really likes the Pigeon books (The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog! is his favorite).
srfbluemama[at]gmail[dot]com
We have several Biscuit books too! My daughter hates when I make her practice her reading with them because she just likes for me to read them to her. 🙂
Tweeted: http://twitter.com/#!/afewmorepages/status/23778729578725376
Hey, thanks for the thorough and thoughtful review–love it! I always like to let readers know that while this series is a good gift for the 2-8 yr old crowd, it’s most effective when they start asking those tough questions–which you highlighted beautifully. Thank you.
Thanks for stopping by!
I love the fact that you deal with biblical principles without being an actual “bible stories” book or devotional. It’s very difficult to find children’s books that deal so directly with God and Jesus that are as much fiction as Christian. I do believe that God Gave Us Love may become one of my all time favorite children’s books. Partly because of the message and partly because I had such a special relationship with my own grandpa and remember having serious discussions like that with him when I was growing up.
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Our favorite children’s book is Bless Me. It is a simple board book, great to use with a baby or toddler that takes the reader from being thankful for the things in his/her world, to blessing children everywhere.
kkmcclellan @ hotmail . com
I follow you on twitter pbumcpw
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Naming a favorite children’s book is nearly impossible. We have so many favorites. We love the Llama Llama books by Anna Dewdney. My kids also like wordless picture books such as the Good Dog, Carl books by Alexandra Day, Goodnight, Gorialla by Peggy Rathmann, and Welcome to the Zoo by Alison Day. As a young girl, one of my favorites was Miss Suzie by Miriam Young.
Oh, we love Llama Llama too! We just got Llama Llama Misses Mama for Christmas for our 3 yr old.
We love the Pinkalicious books, Alice in Wonderland and any book about fairies especially the ones by Cicley Mary Barker
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I really like the Chronicles on Narnia series.
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My favorite is The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christen Andersen. Thanks.
partymix25(at)hotmail(dot)com
I love the book “I Love you This Much” with Big and Little Nutbrown Hare. However, Lisa Bergren is my favorite author. I have many of her books for myself and for my 10 yr. old son. We do not have this one however. I would love to win it. Thank you for the opportunity.
Carrie