Wow God! Thank you, Sorry, Please: A Kid’s Guide to Prayer by Simon Camilleri (10Publishing)
The bane of my existence as a parent is badly rhymed kids’ books (closely followed by badly illustrated books). For some reason, they’re the ones my children are drawn to and insist I read night after night. Don’t tell my three-year-old, but I have hidden our copy of The Three Little Pigs for this very reason.
However, when a children’s book comes along that has decent pace, clever word combinations and beautiful illustrations, I can’t wait to share it with my daughters. There are lots of kids’ books on prayer, but this one came recommended by a few trusted friends.
This is Simon Camilleri’s second book. He’s also known for When Santa Learned the Gospel and some brilliant faith-based Hamilton parodies on YouTube. This book is not only delightful to read as a parent, but offers kids a clear framework for prayer.
It tells the story of a daughter and her dad heading out for an adventure together, exploring the different ways we should talk to God along the way. With the framework of “Wow, God”, “Thank you”, “Sorry” and “Please”, Camilleri shows what each part of prayer can look like and scaffolds for kids the kinds of words they could also say.
The last few pages of the book have prompts for each of the categories that allow children to draw, write and compose their own prayers to God. This is a great way for families to extend the lessons of the book beyond bedtime and help kids grow familiar with this format of prayer.
I have been teaching my children to say “Thank you” to God for a long time, and we regularly ask God for things. I appreciate how Camilleri builds adoration into this framework for children. My family will often talk about how great God is, but we haven’t explicitly built it into our regular prayers, so I think this will be a great addition to our prayer time.
This book has become my latest go-to gift for little people in my life. It’s great to have another tool in the toolkit for teaching kids about prayer.
