Gorgeous art and rich text! The book begins with an adaptation of the Baptismal Covenant in the Episcopal Church, "I believe in God... I believe in Jesus." The adaptation is imaginative and inspiring. These belief statements are followed by a description of the baptismal promises and a retelling of major events in Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. Then there are pages about the Holy Spirit, gathering in community and for Communion, and following Jesus on "his path of justice." The book ends with a beautiful and tender prayer in the voice of the baptized.

Nearly every time I turned the page and took in the prose and art I said, "this is my favorite page." I rarely come across books this beautiful. The reason I am giving it four stars is that I wish the pages were tied together a bit more with the theme of baptism. One of the first things I look at in any children's book about Jesus is how his death is presented. Hutchison does this gently. However, the statement "Yet he still chose to die on the cross to forgive our sins" is a not the way I personally prefer to introduce atonement to children. Even so this will be a lovely addition to our church library.

The artwork in this picture book is visually stunning, imaginative, and inclusive. As someone who’s got a graduate degree in early childhood education, I will be “telling” the book with young children, since the text doesn’t always feel developmentally appropriate. Still, the book is worth it for the illustrations.

If this were a wordless book, I’d give it five stars. It the illustrations weren’t as beautiful as they are, I’d give the book 3 stars on text alone.
We need more beautiful, inclusive, theologically-grounded picture books for young children, so I’m grateful for this addition.

Many thanks to Morehouse Publishing and NetGalley for a free copy for review.

I really appreciated the artwork in this book. It is very engaging and inviting, imaginative while grounded, as well as just plainly beautiful. Very well done: much evidence of craft. This is the kind of artwork I want my kids to be exposed to.

As far as the text goes, it is less effective than the artwork. It starts off as a sort of creed, but then it gets a bit more flowery than I would expect a creed for kids to be. But neither is it narrative or whimsical enough to really grab a child. I feels like, text-wise, it will not resonate.

I am also curious if the couple on the last page is intentionally androgynous.

Hutchison and Westwood remind us about the significance of baptism as a way to enter the God's family in the church. This is a very wonderful gift ever to a person who become a Christian, to be part of God's big big family.

This was underwhelming. I was hoping it would talk more about what baptism was, what the symbolism stood for, and why we choose to do it as followers of Jesus. But It talked more about the church and entering community. Which honestly was surprising and I like that addition but thought it needed more explanation of the symbolism rather than focusing so heavily on community. Not going to use it to talk to my kids.

A beautiful children's book explaining baptism and the significance of Christ's sacrifice. I expected it to have a bit more detail about baptism specifically. It has great illustrations and uses really simple language. All in all, it's a great gospel primer for really young children.

This book was beautifully done! I loved the information it gave, and just all the cute pictures. It was such a big topic, that they did such a great job explaining well and clearly for kids. My family loved it! Great book for a big concept.