Mr and Mrs God in the Creation Kitchen

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed quite a few posts around at the moment on the subject of talking to children about big questions: death, faith, God? Is it Easter that's brought it all out?

Anyway, I thought I'd tell you about this fab book that I recently discovered. This isn't a sponsored post. I have no connection with the author or the book. I just like it. I found it, less than half price, in a bargain box of books in my local supermarket, amongst all the princess sticker books and Disney. It was rather a surprise.

The blurb says this:

Deep in the heavens, in a space without beginning or end, Mr and Mrs God are hard at work. They've got frying pans and mixing bowls, beaters and whisks, and an oven big enough to roast a star...

You get the gist.

I'll tell you what I like about the book. I love the fact that God is both Mr and Mrs. I would love my children to grow up to be comfortable with the idea of God as both male and female, on an emotional as well as intellectual level. Hurrah for The Shack, which helped us all along the way with this one. Remember the days (you won't unless your children are a little older than mine) when a baby book always referred to a baby as 'he'? Now it would seem quite bizarre if a baby book did that. I'm looking forward to the day when talk about God is similarly unfettered from its male history. It'll probably take a bit longer to establish a new norm than it did in the baby book market, but I'm hopeful. That's the first thing I like about the book.

The second thing I like is that Mr and Mrs God come across as hugely fun and imaginative, and that creation is portrayed as a big lark and adventure. Our tendency seems to be to take anything religious too seriously, so it's always a plus when there's a bit of jolly fun going on.

Then there's the relationship between Mr and Mrs God. Trinitarian theology is, I'm told, very important in Theology circles at the moment (the reason for which has passed me by), and it seems that relationship is central to this whole deal. Well, I like how Mr and Mrs God work together, even if it does involve Mrs God saying to Mr God "How could you?" when his pelican gobbles up her nice bright fish, and then not speaking to him for a thousand years.

And if you're looking for a bit of theology in the book, you'll like the ending. I've always struggled with the whole 'free will' concept. It seems to me suspiciously like people trying to let God off the hook. "Well, God IS both perfectly good and perfectly almighty, and he COULD have made a perfect world, but then we would have been like robots and not had a choice about how we relate to Him (Her)." Choice? What, like some consumerist approach to shopping in the universe? Seems to me that if I was omnipotent, as well as being all-loving, I could have thought my way round that one, easy-peasy lemon-squeezy. Anyway, I'm not saying that Mr and Mrs God in the Creation Kitchen makes sense of it, but there's something about the final page that appealed to me. As they set the baking tray on the earth, and watch their baked man and woman get up out of it, the book closes:

"I wonder how they'll turn out," said Mr God.

"Who knows?" said Mrs God.

"We'll just have to wait and see."

It's not a theological treatise, is it? But somehow, there's something about it that I like. Perhaps it's because it's unresolved. I like unresolved.

So I like the characters, and the plot, and the text. I'm not so keen on the illustrations. They seem chaotic and not very well defined, which was probably to reflect the idea of the story, but for a child, I think they might be overwhelming. They're also a bit grey and lacking in colour, which again is probably a deliberate reflection of the story - where colour is used, it's not in the kitchen, but in the finished creation. But that's just my opinion. You might love them.

If you're going to be troubled by any creation story other than the Big Bang or the Bible, then this isn't the book for you. But if you want to put some fun thoughts regarding one of Life's Big Questions into your child's enquiring mind, and end up saying "well, nobody really knows exactly how it happened", then this could be the book for you. (But don't buy it if you're the mother of my godchild, as this is definitely a birthday or Christmas present coming his way.)

Here's a link if you're interested.

.