I thought it would be fun to check out a picture book for my next review, so I asked Waterbrook to send me a copy of Lisa Tawn Bergren’s God Gave us the World, illustrated by Laura J. Bryant. They were nice enough to comply. I used two test subjects to help me with my review—Jase, age 6, and Joy, age 7.

This adorable picture book follows a family of polar bears as they visit a museum exhibit of bears around the world. The mama bear explains to one of the little bears that God made all sorts of bears, all of them different. When the little bear asks why he didn’t make all bears the same she shows him how fun the differences in bears can be.

It was a hit! As soon as we closed the book Jase asked to read it again. He giggled his way through both readings, loving the pictures. He also had a fun time reading the signs on each page that showed what exhibit in the museum was next. When we read the pages describing the differences bears have (some are quiet, some are loud, etc) he acted out the descriptions. Both times. Jase gave the book a 10 out 5.

Joy also liked the book, saying she liked the pictures the best. When I asked her what her favorite part was she said, “the bears,” because they were cute. She didn’t say a lot about the book (she’s a quiet one) but she gave it a 4 out of 5.

The only complaint we had were a few pages in the middle of the book that went on for quite a while about the attributes of God. While sharing the wonderful aspects of God with our children is great, it took us out of the story. I would have loved to see it integrated into the action more or just have that section pared down to one or two sentences. When I was reading it I could feel that it was dragging and when I asked Jase if there were any parts that he didn’t like, he pointed to those pages. “They’re not doing anything fun,” he explained. Fortunately, the rest of the book was plenty fun.

All in all, God Gave us the World was a hit. It will be a repeat read for years to come for sure.