God Went to Beauty School - Cynthia Rylant

Poems about God experiencing life as a human.

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Common Sense rates it
3
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Book details
  • Author:Cynthia Rylant
  • # of pages: 56
  • Publisher:HarperCollins Children's Books
  • Original Publication Date: 05/22/2004
  • Genre: Fiction - Contemporary Fiction
  • Hardcover: $14.99
  • Publisher's Recommended Reading Level: 9-12
  • Read Aloud: 9+
  • Read Alone: 9+
  • Awards:Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor

Parents need to know

Parents need to know that whether you'll find this amusing and thought-provoking or blasphemous and offensive depends entirely on you, your beliefs, and your approach to religious material. Either way, it will prompt lots of religious discussion with your kid.

Families can talk about what it might be like to be a god experiencing earthly things. What would be the greatest differences? What do you think God would think of your life?

Message

Social Behavior:

Consumerism:

Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco:

Violence

Sex

Language

Common Sense says

What's the story?

Reviewed by Amy Brotman

In a series of free-verse poems, God comes to earth in human form to experience normal life in the world he has created. He gets a dog, a couch, and a cold, makes spaghetti, gets a job, climbs a mountain, and, of course, goes to beauty school.

In human form, he reacts as a human; he wants comics and juice when he has a cold, cries at movies, doesn't like to eat alone, enjoys watching TV and playing poker, and even gets into a bar fight. And, since he's doing it all for the first time, it all seems amazing and wonderful.

Is it any good?

3

Recipient of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor, this is a good example of what's wrong with children's literature awards in this country -- children are not considered. Certainly it's well written, amusing, thought-provoking, and (depending on your own beliefs) worth sharing, a poem at a time, with your kids. It might even get them looking at the world through this unusual lens, and wondering how God would experience other aspects of their own lives.

But is this a book that kids will pick up, read, and enjoy? Oh, a few might, children with a real taste for religious speculation, or those looking for a really short, easy-to-read book to fulfill an assignment. But in general this is not a book written to appeal to kids, it's written to appeal to those who make the buying decisions --librarians, and the award committees that influence them. And because it won an award, it will sell, and more books like it will be written and fill up our libraries -- then we'll wonder why kids don't like to read.

From the Book:
God Went to the Doctor
And the doctor said,
"You don't need me,'
you're God."
And God said,
"Well, you're pretty good
at playing me,
I figured you'd
know what the
problem was."

Other choices

Other Books by Cynthia Rylant
A Blue-Eyed Daisy
Every Living Thing
A Fine White Dust
Missing May
The Islander
In Aunt Lucy's Kitchen
The Blue Hill Meadows
The Heavenly Village

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Under the Pear Tree by Brenda Seabrooke
Love that Dog by Sharon Creech
Girl Coming in for a Landing by April Halprin Wayland
Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff
The Brimstone Journals by Ron Koertge
Witness by Karen Hesse
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
Aleutian Sparrow by Karen Hesse

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47 votes