Book Review - God Gave Us Love

God Gave Us Love, by Lisa Tawn Bergen,  is a cute book that essentially tries to answer the question, "Why do we have to love everyone?"   Grandpa bear tries to teach Little Cub about God's love and how God wants us to love others like He loves.  I think the book does a pretty good job of bringing the big subject of love, especially God's love, down to the level of a preschooler.  I also like how it ends by sharing God's ultimate act of love, sending Jesus to the earth to die on the cross for our sins (sadly, it doesn't even go into as much detail as I just did!)

That brings me to my critique of the book.  In effort to make the subject understandable to small children, it minimizes God.  For instance, the line "He always hopes for the best in us."  God is not sitting up in heaven crossing his fingers that we do the right thing.  Also, the poor theology of the line "Because God loved us that much, we won't ever be separated from him."  You won't be separated from God if you have a saving faith in what Jesus Christ did on the cross, God loving you is not enough (this lines has the feel of 'everyone ultimately ends up in heaven because God could never send anyone to hell). 

I do recommend this book because it is a cute story that tackles practical issues for a youngster, like loving your siblings, not getting upset when things don't go your way, and being thankful for your family and those around you.  Just make sure that you are teaching your child sound theology so they don't get any wrong ideas from a couple of questionable lines in the book =)

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




Happy Reading!