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God's Paintbrush
A Guide for Jewish and Christian Educators and Parents Children speak about God in ways that are different from adults. They ask many questions about God, questions that can be startlingly direct. Oftentimes adults―parents, grandparents and teachers―feel uncomfortable answering them. Through fantasy, involvement and imagination, Sandy Sasso and Annette Compton invite children of all faiths and backgrounds to encounter God openly through moments in their own lives―and help the adults who love them to be a part of that encounter. This book provides a gift of images that nurtures and encourages children in making meaning of their world. With over 100,000 copies in print, God's Paintbrush remains one of the most popular spiritual books for children of all faiths, all backgrounds. This special anniversary edition includes new ideas for interaction between adults and children, and an important new message from the author.
32 pages, Hardcover
First published October 31, 1994
2 people are currently reading
109 people want to read
About the author
Sandy Eisenberg Sasso
70 books50 followersRabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso is the director of the Religion, Spirituality, and the Arts Initiative at IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute. From 1977-2013 she served, along with her husband Rabbi Dennis C. Sasso, as spiritual leader of Congregation Beth-El Zedeck . In June 2013 she became Rabbi Emerita. After receiving her B.A. and M.A. from Temple University, in 1974 she was the first woman ordained from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. In addition to being the first woman to serve a Conservative congregation, she and her husband are the first practicing rabbinical couple in world Jewish history.
Sandy has written and lectured on women and spirituality, the discovery of the religious imagination in children., women’s leadership, and reimagining the Bible. She is the author of several nationally acclaimed books. Most notably, in 2004, Sandy received the Helen Keating Ott Award for Outstanding Contribution to Children’s Literature and, in 2012 took home the National Jewish Book Award for Best Illustrated Children’s Book for The Shemah in the Mezuzah. In 2019 she won the Glick Regional Author’s Award.
Sandy has been honored as one of the “Influential Women in Indiana” by the Indianapolis Business Journal and was featured among “Indy’s Most Influential Clergy” by NUVO News Weekly. She is the recipient of the “Sagamore of the Wabash”, the highest civilian honor awarded by the Governor of the State of Indiana and has been the recipient of Rhe Heritage Keeper’s award for: the Indiana State Museum and the Torchbearer’s Award from the Indiana Commission for Women.
Sandy has written and lectured on women and spirituality, the discovery of the religious imagination in children., women’s leadership, and reimagining the Bible. She is the author of several nationally acclaimed books. Most notably, in 2004, Sandy received the Helen Keating Ott Award for Outstanding Contribution to Children’s Literature and, in 2012 took home the National Jewish Book Award for Best Illustrated Children’s Book for The Shemah in the Mezuzah. In 2019 she won the Glick Regional Author’s Award.
Sandy has been honored as one of the “Influential Women in Indiana” by the Indianapolis Business Journal and was featured among “Indy’s Most Influential Clergy” by NUVO News Weekly. She is the recipient of the “Sagamore of the Wabash”, the highest civilian honor awarded by the Governor of the State of Indiana and has been the recipient of Rhe Heritage Keeper’s award for: the Indiana State Museum and the Torchbearer’s Award from the Indiana Commission for Women.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 21, 2013
One of our all time favorite books and best present my 3 yr old twins got for their birthday. A wonderful book with absolutely beautiful water color paintings on each page, with such detail and technicality, that we never tire of looking at the pictures. All my children love this book, my 5 yr old and my preschoolers, and it's no wonder why. The book talks about God's world and how we are a part of it. Each page has a different topic with some excellent questions that really get the children thinking such as "What does God call us to do?" and "What are some times that we feel alone?" and many many more. A great way to introduce the aspect of a spiritual life with your children and get them to open up about their feelings and how they can use God to get some peace. We love this book, it's one of our favorites.
June 17, 2008
One of my favorite books to use for Religious Education classes. Appropriate for the very young but appealing to all ages.
June 28, 2008
This book, which aims to help children think about God in terms of the world they see, was written by the second woman to be ordained as a rabbi. It is non-sectarian and can probably be comfortably read by any monotheistic family. There are questions at the end of each page that prompt children to think about their feelings and about God. This was the commentary my daughter offered between gymnastic tricks on the couch:
Me (reading): How can you be God's Friend?
Daughter: I already am.
Me (reading): How can your hands help God's hands?
Daughter: Picking stuff up.
Me (reading): Can you dance God's dance?
Daughter: I don't know. What is God's dance? (Good question.)
Me (reading): Sometimes I think God is just like my Mom when she helps me look –
Daughter: Why is she calling God a she?
Me: She's not calling God a she; she's comparing God to her mom and her mom is the she in that sentence. (At this point, however, I am reminded that I rolled my eyes when I saw the back cover blurb boast of the book's "non-sexist" language. I tend to think women have enough real sufferings to worry about that they don't need to expend their energy fighting semantics and making language more cumbersome. When I read that blurb, I admit I was afraid the book would insist on calling God a "she," which might make it unreadable for me because, really, that kind of political obsession with language kills my spiritual buzz. Fortunately, she opted instead simply for avoiding pronouns for God altogether, which sometimes meant repeating the word God up to three times in a single sentence. It's awkward, but at least it won't shatter any young girl's self-esteem and leave her with the impression that she can never be God just because she's a girl.)
Me (reading): I wonder if God has eyes.
Daughter (emphatically): He does.
Me (reading): And I can paint with God's paintbrush.
Daughter: God doesn't have a paintbrush. Can we read something else?
I can see the potential in this book to get children to explore their questions about God...but children are going to pose their own questions to their parents anyway: they don't really need a script that might not fit them. I can also see a sort of warm non-discriptness in the book's spirituality, which I think frankly bored my daughter. When it comes to religious stories, there's pretty much just four she really wants: the one where Solomon threatens to cut the baby in half, the one where Jonah gets swallowed by a whale, the one where David kills Goliath, and the one where Christ is crucified and rises from the dead. But we have to protect our children from dark complexity these days.
The book also focuses an awful lot on personal feelings. This seems to be a very popular approach to take with children these days in literature and television shows and in school, but I find that all this persistent encouragement to focus on her feelings has the detrimental effect of making my daughter more self-absorbed and less sensitive to the needs of others. I find I am constantly having to remind her that our actions towards others matter more than our personal feelings, because all this talk therapy has given her the impression that if she has negative feelings about something, that's more important than whether or not it's the right thing to do.
I understand what this book is trying to achieve, and I bet it works well for many kids. The illustrations are colorful and soothing, and the basic concept is good, but I just don't think it's going to work for the personality of my particular daughter. It may be more appropriate when she is a bit older and is struggling more with questions about God, and I will try it again then.
Me (reading): How can you be God's Friend?
Daughter: I already am.
Me (reading): How can your hands help God's hands?
Daughter: Picking stuff up.
Me (reading): Can you dance God's dance?
Daughter: I don't know. What is God's dance? (Good question.)
Me (reading): Sometimes I think God is just like my Mom when she helps me look –
Daughter: Why is she calling God a she?
Me: She's not calling God a she; she's comparing God to her mom and her mom is the she in that sentence. (At this point, however, I am reminded that I rolled my eyes when I saw the back cover blurb boast of the book's "non-sexist" language. I tend to think women have enough real sufferings to worry about that they don't need to expend their energy fighting semantics and making language more cumbersome. When I read that blurb, I admit I was afraid the book would insist on calling God a "she," which might make it unreadable for me because, really, that kind of political obsession with language kills my spiritual buzz. Fortunately, she opted instead simply for avoiding pronouns for God altogether, which sometimes meant repeating the word God up to three times in a single sentence. It's awkward, but at least it won't shatter any young girl's self-esteem and leave her with the impression that she can never be God just because she's a girl.)
Me (reading): I wonder if God has eyes.
Daughter (emphatically): He does.
Me (reading): And I can paint with God's paintbrush.
Daughter: God doesn't have a paintbrush. Can we read something else?
I can see the potential in this book to get children to explore their questions about God...but children are going to pose their own questions to their parents anyway: they don't really need a script that might not fit them. I can also see a sort of warm non-discriptness in the book's spirituality, which I think frankly bored my daughter. When it comes to religious stories, there's pretty much just four she really wants: the one where Solomon threatens to cut the baby in half, the one where Jonah gets swallowed by a whale, the one where David kills Goliath, and the one where Christ is crucified and rises from the dead. But we have to protect our children from dark complexity these days.
The book also focuses an awful lot on personal feelings. This seems to be a very popular approach to take with children these days in literature and television shows and in school, but I find that all this persistent encouragement to focus on her feelings has the detrimental effect of making my daughter more self-absorbed and less sensitive to the needs of others. I find I am constantly having to remind her that our actions towards others matter more than our personal feelings, because all this talk therapy has given her the impression that if she has negative feelings about something, that's more important than whether or not it's the right thing to do.
I understand what this book is trying to achieve, and I bet it works well for many kids. The illustrations are colorful and soothing, and the basic concept is good, but I just don't think it's going to work for the personality of my particular daughter. It may be more appropriate when she is a bit older and is struggling more with questions about God, and I will try it again then.
December 9, 2011
This book would make a good read-aloud book because it is very involved. There are questions throughout the book that you can ask children to get an idea of how they feel. God uses a paintbrush to create the world.
April 30, 2009
I had fun reading this with my boys. We had a good time with the questions that were at the end of each page. We didn't like the pictures too much.
July 5, 2020
A book of thoughts and questions about God for kids.
Can be read straight through, but can also be appreciated just a single question at a time.
Can be read straight through, but can also be appreciated just a single question at a time.
January 18, 2013
Nice watercolor pictures accompany short observations from a child's point of view. Every page or two contains a simple question or two designed to provoke thought and conversation about who God is and what people who follow Him should do to serve Him.
For the most part, it's well written, though a few of the entries I have a hard time following the line of thought. (How did the author arrive at those questions from where she started out?)
One entry talked about God hiding from us. Since I don't believe God hides from us, I would re-work that one when reading to a child. Since it's a discussion-producing book, it's easy enough to talk out any theological difficulties though.
For the most part, it's well written, though a few of the entries I have a hard time following the line of thought. (How did the author arrive at those questions from where she started out?)
One entry talked about God hiding from us. Since I don't believe God hides from us, I would re-work that one when reading to a child. Since it's a discussion-producing book, it's easy enough to talk out any theological difficulties though.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews