Chil­dren’s

Thank You God for Everything

August Gold; Wendy Ander­son Halperin, illus.
  • Review
By – September 9, 2011
August Gold, spir­i­tu­al direc­tor and cofounder of the Sacred Cen­ter New York (a church), has writ­ten a gener­ic book about thank­ing God. Daisy, a ten-year-old, is look­ing for rea­sons to thank God. Each of Daisy’s thoughts is beau­ti­ful­ly and col­or­ful­ly illus­trat­ed on two fac­ing pages. She thinks about all the things she loves and thanks God for each day that I wake up and all the things I get to do.” Halperin’s appeal­ing water­col­or illus­tra­tions place Daisy in var­i­ous envi­ron­ments show­ing the world and its diverse splen­dor. There is a small amount of text on each page and no spe­cif­ic reli­gion is men­tioned. The non-denom­i­na­tion­al text is appro­pri­ate for Jew­ish chil­dren. The real­is­tic illus­tra­tions, which sup­port and great­ly enhance the text, do not con­tain any sym­bol­ism that would offend Jew­ish read­ers. For ages 3 – 7.
Ilka Gor­don has a Mas­ters in Edu­ca­tion from Boston Uni­ver­si­ty and an M.L.I.S. from Kent State Uni­ver­si­ty. She is a librar­i­an at Sie­gal Col­lege of Juda­ic Stud­ies in Cleveland.

Discussion Questions