Book Review!: God Gave Us the World, by Lisa Tawn Bergren

The first two pages of this book were my favorite. Not that the rest of the book isn't great, but these two pages really hit home for me:

"What a beautiful world we live in!" Mama Bear said. "Just look at all this snow!"

Little Cub looked around. "We always have snow, Mama."

"Yes, but it's *always* different! Sometimes it's slushy, and sometimes dry, shimmering sparkles drifting from the sky."

Living here in the north east, I can relate to this sentiment. "We always have snow..." Or at least that's how it feels. "Sometimes it's slushy, and sometimes dry..." though it does seem to be slushy more often than dry. It's easy to forget how beautiful God's creation is because we're always around it. It's easy to take advantage of the beauty of snow because, well, as Little Cub says, "We always have snow."

(Photo Credit)

Little Cub is fascinated to learn that God created many different kinds of bears and just as many different places for them all to live! Some bears eat fish, while others love to eat bamboo for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. God, in His infinite creativity, has created such a vast and glorious world for every one of us because He loves us. This book does a wonderful job of showing children (and adults too, because Lord knows how easily we forget) that there is a world outside of our own neighborhood that is wonderful and very different from what we're used to. Each of us is as different as the communities in which we live, and God loves each of us in our uniqueness with which he created us.

The book can really be summed up with this excerpt:

"God created our world and everything in it, because it's in his nature 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."

I highly recommend this book to anyone with children, especially young children. My two sons, ages two and three really enjoyed it. In fact, they enjoyed it so much that they actually sat still while I read the whole story to them. Now that's a miracle!

As per the FTC Regulations:

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.