What I Believe

This is a cheerful guide for 7-10 year olds to the world’s major religions illustrated with a mix of photographs and cartoons. There is a consistent approach, which describes the main beliefs, practices and festivals and gives an idea of the variety of faiths within each religion. Shinto and Tao are covered, although not in as much depth as Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism. The device of eight smiling cartoon children, who take it in turns to tell us about their faith, is unconvincing and patronising: but the inference that all these faiths could be found happily in one playground is welcome. Upbeat as it is, the book has difficulty in dealing with contentious questions, like the position of women. It is all well and good to have an illustration of a woman Rabbi but the text should be clearer that this is the exception rather than the rule. It would have been realistic, too, to recognise that there are many people who have no religion.