One Special Me: A Book Celebrating How God Made Us Special
Name of Book: One Special Me: A Book Celebrating How God Makes Us Special
Author: Allia Zobel Nolan
Illustrator: Pauline Siewert
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Audience: Ages 3 and up
Summary: This children’s book shares the story of several children from different racial backgrounds that all have different physical features. They each take turns sharing one of their features that they like and why it’s special to them. As each character celebrates his or her uniqueness, they also celebrate that God made them special and they have special gifts because of how God created them.
Literary elements at work in the story: This paraphrase storybook is told from multiple first person points of view through the eyes of the unnamed children. Each highlights a unique feature of them and then celebrates the way they are made by God. The overall theme of the book is that God has created us each as individuals and that we should celebrate and be grateful for how we are created by God. This book is a special format genre book that invites children to read and learn through both sight and touch.
How does the perspective on gender/race/culture/economic/ability make a difference to the story? While the book includes white skinned and darker skinned children, as well as children who are tall and short, the book makes no mention of children of different physical handicaps. Children are portrayed by skin color, eye color, hair style and texture, vision ability, height and arm length, and even sense of smell and lost teeth. There is no reference to economic or cultural differences among the children. Both male and female children are portrayed in the book.
Scripture: Psalm 139:14 (ICB) “I praise you because you have made me in an amazing and wonderful way.”
Theology: We strive to live into the fullness of our identity as children of God. We know that God made us in God’s image when we were created, and we can embrace that as we embrace our identity as God’s unique and beloved creation. Everything that God created was and is good and nothing about our identity or selves was created with less than that same love and perfection. We are created in the image of God to grow into a full life through the love of God in Jesus Christ and the strength of the Holy Spirit.
Faith Talk Questions
- Who created you?
- What do you think God said about you when you were created?
- What is special about you that God gave just to you?
- What do you love most about who God made you to be?
- What are some special things that only you can do with the body & life God gave to you?
- How do you thank God for the life given to you?
Review prepared by Union Presbyterian Seminary graduate Katie Todd
One Special Me: A Book Celebrating How God Made Us Special by Storypath is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
