How Big is God?
Name of Book: How Big is God?
Author: Lisa Tawn Bergren
Illustrator: Laura J. Bryant
Publisher: Harper Blessings; Harper Collins
Audience: Ages 3 -7
Summary: A little boy asks his mother, “Where does God live?” When the mother answers, the two begin a discussion about the size of God and where God lives and what God is like. God is compared to wind, a seed that grows into a tree, rain drops and the vast ocean. The boy comes to realize the presence of God in his life and that God is both large and small, and everything in between, all at the same time.
Literary elements at work in the story: The story is of a little boy and his mom, told from the point of view of an omniscient narrator. The theme of “God is like…” is important to the story.
How does the perspective on gender/race/culture/economic/ability make a difference to the story? The main characters are each male and female, but the male pronoun is used to represent God. The book shows very few characters that are not Caucasian, and the dress of all portrays characters with means.
Scripture: Ephesians 4:6
Theology: God wants us to know, feel and love God, so God makes God’s self known to us. God has made God’s self known to us in three ways, as: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit is always present and working in the world. When we see God in action in our lives or in creation, we see God the Holy Spirit at work. Knowing what God “is like” reminds that God the Holy Spirit is ever-present.
Faith Talk Questions:
- The boy asked where God lives. Do you know where God lives?
- Do you know what God looks like?
- Is God here with us now? How do you know?
- How do we know that God is working in the world, and here with us, if we can’t see God?
Review prepared by Union Presbyterian Seminary student Katie Todd
How Big is God? by Storypath is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
