Just Pretend: A Book for Young Freethinkers

by Dan Barker, Kati Treu (Illustrator)

One of the greatest skills children can learn is to think for themselves. They need to know how to think clearly, how to question authority when necessary, and how to separate fantasy from fact. Just Pretend is a truthful book that allows children to explore myths like Santa Claus compared with ideas like the existence of God. Just Pretend encourages children to apply the tests of reason to any idea, fairy tale, myth, or religion. Children should be allowed to make their decisions about their beliefs at their own pace. Just Pretend offers them a charming and frank look at religion from a freethought perspective. ( Santa spoiler.)

32 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 2018

About the author

Daniel Edwin Barker is an American atheist activist and musician who served as an evangelical Christian preacher and composer for 19 years but left Christianity in 1984. He and his wife Annie Laurie Gaylor are the current co-presidents of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. He has written numerous articles the organization's newspaper Freethought Today. He is the author of several books including Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist. Barker has been an invited speaker at Rock Beyond Belief. He is on the speakers bureau of the Secular Student Alliance.

Reviews

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hoooooo boy! This one is gonna piss people off something fierce. Look, if you believe in god, or want your kid to believe in god, you probably aren't the audience for this book. But the people who get angry at this blatantly atheistic children's book would probably feel just fine about one that tells kids that god is real and the bible is truth and you must do all of the following to earn your golden ticket to heaven. So, this teaches kids to question it all - Santa, religion, god, etc. It does get a bit condescending about religious folks, and I think it would have been a better book without that tone, but atheist/agnostic/skeptic picture books for kids are few and far between.