What Every Child Should Know About Prayer

Every Child Should Know

by Nancy Guthrie

Best-selling author Nancy Guthrie and much loved illustrator Jenny Brake team up on this biblical theology of prayer for children. Nancy explains in child-friendly language what prayer is, how and why we should pray, and the things we can pray about. There is a Bible verse for each topic, and a prayer for children to make their own. This book will introduce children to the gift of prayer and will encourage them to enjoy speaking to their father God.

Genres: Childrens, Parenting, Prayer, Christian, Nonfiction, Christianity, Christian Living

144 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2018

About the author

Nancy Guthrie teaches the Bible at her home church, Cornerstone Presbyterian Church in Franklin, Tennessee, as well as at conferences around the country and internationally, including through her Biblical Theology Workshops for Women. She is the author of numerous books and the host of the Help Me Teach the Bible podcast at The Gospel Coalition. She and her husband host Respite Retreats for couples who have faced the death of child and are co-hosts of the GriefShare video series.

Reviews

[Becky Pliego · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it, loved it, loved it. All of it is fantastic, the text, the illustrations, the format, all of it.

[Bambi Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just fantastic. The best children’s books are the ones that edify the parents as well as the children. “Praying isn’t just about asking God for stuff.” I say this to my own kids often and Mrs. Guthrie has written this book to explain this truth very well in child-friendly ways.

[Maxime N. Georgel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent livre à destination des enfants sur la prière, enseignement pratique et systématique, Notre Père, Psaumes, exemples parlant, rien n’est omis.

[Lindsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book for parents of young kids (it was perfect for my 4 and 8 year olds). It helped to renew our family’s focus on prayer. I loved the format - short but biblically rich chapters broken up into sections, each page with beautiful, diverse drawings.

[Sassa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Just excellent. It is not just for children. It edifies all.

[Abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

We were given this wonderful book as a gift and we read it as a family for devotions at breakfast. Our daughters loved it and we benefited from it too. We’ll return to it in the future and give it as a gift as well.

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a helpful book on prayer written by the author Nancy Guthrie. According to the product information online the audience of the book is intended for kids ages 3-7. For younger kids that means their parents will have to read it to them while older kids can also read this book by themselves. I read this to my daughters as bed time reading and they enjoyed it. In addition as a pastor who is concern for biblical contents of Christian books I thought this book’s theology was doctrinally sound.
The book consists of six parts and each part has several “chapters.” By “chapters” I mean two pages section that also consists of pictures within those pages. I love taken together these sections presents us a bite size theology of prayer for little ones to understand. Part one is on “God Wants Us to Talk to Him” that is foundational for later parts of the book with its chapters on prayer is talking to God and God hears us when we pray, etc. Part two is titled “Prayer is more than Asking God for Things.” I’m glad this is in the book as prayer is more than requests and petitions, there is praise, thanksgiving, and confession. Part three is on “God’s People have always Prayed” and it surveys various individuals in biblical history who have prayed different prayers to God. I thought this was like a min-biblical-theology of prayers for kids! Part four then is on “The Psalms Gives us Words to Pray” followed by part five on “Jesus Teaches us to Pray.” Here these two parts focus on the Word of God in the Psalms and Jesus’ teaching on what to pray. Finally part six is titled “Let’s Pray” and each chapter begins with “Let’s pray for…” with things such as “Let’s pray for God to bless other people, etc.”
I enjoyed the format of this book. Each part of the book is color coded and my daughters would make the observation that part one is the “gold part,” or that we finished the “green” part and we are not in the blue part, etc. For the chapters there is the title such as “We can Pray Anywhere” or “We can Pray about Everything” that is stated with the color background of the part of the book it is in, and there’s the main body consisting of one or two paragraphs then a Bible verse and a model prayer. For the final part of the book that is more driving the readers to pray there is also a “question” bubble that is helpful for the kids to think what and who to pray for.
In addition to the contents my family and I also enjoyed the art work. They are simple and cute yet realistic and clear. Having read some children’s book in which the illustrations are abstract or weird I must say I appreciate the artwork in this book being the way it is.
Overall I recommend this book. I think one can also use this for family devotions and I had my daughters read aloud with me the Bible verse for each “chapter.” It is edifying and fun to read.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed with this book: there’s a strong emphasis on God’s forgiveness (fine), but it is out of balance with the emphasis on God’s love, leaving the impression that God kind of tolerates us because Jesus. There’s a persistent individualism, too — but so far, so evangelical and it’s not terrible, even if it’s not quite how I want to present God and prayer to kids.

But what really made me upset is the illustration on the page about needing God, and the accompanying prayer “Father, please forgive me for the wrong things I have done. Please give me new life in Jesus. I need you!” This page has the *only* illustration of a disabled person (a girl in a wheelchair), implying that, at best, disabled people need God more and, at worst, that this child somehow sinned and caused her disability. I would be less bothered if, in addition to the gender and racial diversity, this was one of many illustrations with differently-abled kids. But nope, the only one. Based on this alone, I will not be recommending this book to parents.

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

The perfect daily devotional for my girls (9, 6, 4 when we finished it). Each short entry is simple in language and yet so deep in content, includes a supporting scripture and ending “I can pray...” summary to prompt further discussion. This really helped the girls grasp that prayer is so much more than thanking God at mealtime and asking him to do things for us. I plan to revisit it many more times!

Headings/Topics:
God wants us to talk to Him
Prayer is more than asking God for things
God’s people have always prayed
The Psalms give us words to pray
Jesus teaches us to pray
Let’s pray!

[Eddie Mercado · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. We read a couple pages every night before putting the kids to bed. I appreciate the structure, beginning first with the Trinitarian foundations for prayer, then the Lord’s Prayer, and finally practical aspects of praying. There are short verses in every section, that could be used for memorization. Recommended for child and adult alike.

[Corrie Kreisel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Breakfast read aloud with my toddler and preschool boys. We loved the short chapters and the ideas to implement and pray immediately. It was great for their age, and we’ll go through it again in a few years. Wonderful illustrations full of whimsy, diversity, and joy!

[Deanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read as a read aloud during our morning devotions. Love this book and how it broke down prayer. Encouraged alot of conversations about the bible and more in depth prayers from everyone. Will definitely add this to be read again.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

We read this aloud with Charlotte, my 7 year old. It’s a great primer on prayer for children, and I enjoyed it also!

[Heather Persing · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book to talk to kids about prayer! Short enough to keep their attention but still with depth. We’ll be rereading this one multiple times!

[Peter Yock · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a great book to work through slowly with my kids. Can’t recommend it highly enough.

[Kirk Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

A solid primer on prayer. A good survey of the discipline and theology of prayer that would serve both children and grown-ups alike.

[Jurene · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a wonderful and short daily devotional for our morning time. I highly recommend it!

[Luke Rasmussen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great entry for young kids starting to do daily devotions. Straight forward and helpful.

[Hannah Moore]

will be adding to our regular family worship rotation 🙂

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, an excellent book for helping children learn how and why to pray. A couple chapters and scripture proofs were too watered down, even for my 4 year old, but it was simple enough to whip out our Bible and add meat to the milk.

[Ivy Greenwood]

So so good.

[Veronica Jenkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really liked this book…however I feel like it is geared to a little younger age kiddos. MJ still enjoyed it.

[David Goetz · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic book for parents to read to their young kids and for elementary-age kids to read themselves. The book has six sections:

1. God wants us to talk to him
2. Prayer is more than asking God for things
3. God's people have always prayed
4. The Psalms give us words to pray
5. Jesus teaches us to pray
6. Let's pray!

Each section has around 10 entries, each of which is two pages long, and each of which includes a passage of Scripture and either a brief prayer or a question for reflection at the end.

I greatly appreciated Guthrie's focus in section three on particular people of God at prayer (Moses, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Mary, Paul). The use of psalms to teach prayer was excellent, the exposition of the Lord's Prayer was lucid and helpful, and the practical tips in the last section are given legs by the brief prayer or question for reflection at the end. And the emphasis throughout on the use of Scripture in prayer is a salutary reminder to keep the language of prayer tethered to the language of Scripture.

The only thing missing is an entry somewhere on the calling of Scripture to pray not only for but with others.

Highly recommended for parents with kids between the ages of 3 and 10.

[Zaira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super cute book

[C.J. Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can’t wait to read this when our daughter can understand it. It’s a great biblical theology of prayer written in language that a child can understand. Love that it’s rooted in and references Scripture on almost every page.

Was even brought to tears a few times at how Guthrie points us, in her prayerful applications, to the simplicity and childlike nature of dependent prayer to God.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic, a wonderful way to show the perfection of Scripture itself for prayers. The book is simple and short, but I do not find that to be a fault—long prayers are not better because they are longer. It covers, simply and clearly, the different concerns that should bring us to God. What made our family realize this book was the gem that it is was taking the time each time to pray around, praying that kind of prayer. Radical help. Our kids’ prayers blossomed in spiritual maturity, even apart from that reading time. Unprompted breakfast prayer: “Dear Jesus, thank you for these eggs. And thank you that we have a King like you. In Jesus’ name, amen.” AMEN. 😭🙌🏻 This book was helpful for all of us, any age, something to reread when prayers get a bit flabby or repetitive.

[Tracey]

I was a bit confused at first, thinking no child could possibly sit down to read this book...until I realized it's meant to be used as a daily devotional with a parent and child (or as a family devotional). I like that there is a very simple sample prayer included in every entry, that the book shows the reader how the psalms and Jesus taught us how to pray, and that the final section is titled "Let's Pray!"

Not adding a rating since I didn't get to test this out with an actual kid but I would probably give it 4-5 stars.

[Mrs R · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book about prayer. Even though it is simple enough for little ones to understand, it was even encouraging to me as I read it with my children. I love that this book points our children to the scriptures to discover what prayer is, why we should pray, and how to pray. Scripture quotations are taken from the New Living Translation of the Bible, which I did not prefer. However, it was easy for me to just have my Bible on my lap and read to my kids a version of the Bible that our family is comfortable with.

[Mandy Codispoti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hands down the best book about prayer for parents to use with the children. Beautifully laid out and organized, it's simple but not dumbed down. Each page has a scripture reference, a prayer concept/truth, a way to pray and an explanation. Also I appreciate the diversity of the people and children portrayed in the illustrations. This is a book I would have bought as a young parent and will buy for young families in the future.

[Alicia Burrows · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read one section a day with my kids. We were not consistent with it so it took longer than it should have. It was good, teaching all the different aspects of prayer with scripture references and prompts or questions about prayer. It has helped develop a couple of my kids’ prayer life. I wasn’t a fan of the NTL translation for the verses used, I’m not against it, just not our preferred translation to use.