Thinking About God is a fantastic introduction for kids to the theology of God and the Bible! The illustrations made the pages fun and broke up the text which made "big" topics feel more approachable! I loved that Alex Early included words that may be harder to understand (ex nihilo, resurrection, etc) and explained them in ways that made it easy for anyone to understand. I found myself disagreeing a bit with Early when she spoke about theology surrounding disability. Being a mom of a child with a disability, I found her wording to be a bit problematic - making children with disabilities seem not whole or as good as a typical child without disability. We will have conversations in our home about why this approach is not actually Biblical - God did not make a mistake when he allowed a child to have different abilities than what the world views as typical. Other than that, I felt this was a good book!

My kids, ages 10 and 8, were the perfect audience for this book. We all loved the Q & A format and I appreciated having a springboard for more in depth conversations with my kids about deep theological concepts. Sometimes it's hard for me to think of a way to explain things in an age appropriate way and this gave me lots of language to use.

Thinking about God by Alex Early uses a straightforward approach to provide kids with a basic understanding of Biblical theology. The approach is a Q&A format walking through key doctrine like the Trinity, sin, and resurrection in a logical progression. One strength of the text is in defining terms in a way that is understandable without dumbing things down – including a couple definitions that helped my understanding as an adult with many years in the church. The book is fairly short – most adults could read in one or two sittings. I think it would be manageable taken in bites for tweens that are strong readers or for teens. The book would also be well suited to reading and discussing along with an adult either in a group or one to one. I didn’t find anything objectionable and felt the author took care to cover core doctrine that are plainly revealed in the Bible and accessible to all. In the case of Baptism, it is described clearly as a sacrament but also adds words to the effect that it would be good to talk with a leader at your church about how your church practices baptism. What makes this book most useful is simply the fact that it tackles theology directly; much of what kids are taught and hear in the church is story based so I think this book serves a unique purpose. Thank you to B&H Publishing Group and NetGalley for an electronic copy to read. I am leaving this review voluntarily and was not required to leave a positive review. All opinions are my own.

This book is incredible! I can’t wait for my sons to read it. Even in the first chapters, I had tears in my eyes. “Thinking About God” is written in such a beautiful, encouraging way. Written for older elementary and up, Alex Early writes to them, not down at them. Early breaks down complex ideas in an easy-to-understand way, but retaining the dignity of a growing learner. I can’t wait for you to read it as well! I highly recommend to this book to all families and churches. Thanks to NetGalley for an early release copy.

Very well written and well organized. Personally, I am not a big fan of working through theology systematically like this. I much prefer biblical theology and a more story formed way of teaching theology and looking at the Bible. So this is more of a philosophical response than a response to the quality of the book. I think it was well done and helpful simple explanations for kids, I'm just not a fan of the approach as a whole.

Great book for kids learning theology. Definitions make it helpful for kids to understand words without treating them like they are too dumb for biblical concepts. The "once upon a time" portion of describing the story of scripture is less than ideal but that's something most people can discuss with their kids.
Scripture is a real story!

I received a dARC from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for my review.

Are you looking for a way to introduce your children to Christian theology in a way that's at their level but still uses the "adult" terms? Thinking About God is a great place to start. Each chapter is a brief overview of a topic of theology, with a couple of questions at the end to think about it more. I have a few minor quibbles about certain points, but most of them aren't even worth bringing up. I do think the application/thought questions could have been more concrete and more objective,

A solid three stars according to GoodReads' "I liked it" category. Great starting place. It's doing something different than Ryan Lister's Emblems of the Infinite King, but I think Emblems captures a kid's imagination more and connects the theology more with daily life than this one does, but Thinking About God is probably better for a younger kid or if you want something more basic.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley.