Welcome to the "The Moon Is Always Round" Book Tour

I received the following book from New Growth Press in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts and opinions are my own.

  ABOUT THE BOOK        

God is Always Good

Jonathan Gibson helps children understand God’s goodness, even when bad things happen.

Greensboro, NC—There are some things we will never understand this side of Heaven. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do some children get cancer? Why do some babies go Heaven before their families can meet them? Even young children want answers to the hard questions about God and suffering. In The Moon Is Always Round (New Growth Press/September 23, 2019), seminary professor and author Jonathan Gibson uses vivid imagery to explain to children how God’s goodness is always present, even when it might appear obscured by upsetting or difficult circumstances.

In this beautiful, full-color book illustrated by Joe Hox, Gibson allows readers to eavesdrop on the real-life conversations he had with his young son, Ben, while waiting for his baby sister to arrive, then following his sister’s death. Lelia was stillborn at thirty-nine weeks into Gibson’s wife, Jackie’s pregnancy. Needless to say, it was a difficult time for the entire family, but Gibson made sure to remind his son of God’s goodness.

In The Moon is Always Round, the father and son share a simple liturgy while observing the moon in its various phases. No matter what the shape of the moon appears on any given night—whether it looks like a banana, a slice of apple or a shriveled orange—Dad reminds Ben that the moon is always round. From there, the two talk about just as the moon is always round regardless of how much of it they can see, the goodness of God is always present throughout the different phases of life.

                                ABOUT THE AUTHOR                                 

Jonathan Gibson, PhD, (Cambridge) is ordained in the International Presbyterian Church,  UK, and is Assistant Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, PA, USA. Previously, he served as Associate Minister at Cambridge Presbyterian Church, England.

Gibson served as coeditor with Mark Earngey of Reformation Worship was contributor to and co-editor with David Gibson of From Heaven He Came and Sought Her. He has also written articles that have appeared in Themelios, Journal of Biblical Literature, Tyndale Bulletin, and Obadiah in the NIV Proclamation Bible. His PhD dissertation was published as Covenant Continuity and Fidelity: A Study of Inner-Biblical Allusion and Exegesis in Malachi. The Moon is Always Round is his first children’s book.

     MY OPINION            

What I loved about this book was how the father gently reassured his son that no matter what happens in life whether tragic or wonderful, God's love never changes, even though circumstances in life does. The moon is a representation of God being ubiquitous and omnipresent.  And it brings great comfort and reassurance for his son as well as to the parents as they mourn the loss of their precious little girl.

This book brought tears to my eyes because everyone was so happy and excited to be welcoming a precious baby into the family.  But loss is a part of life, and to explain this loss to small children can be difficult, this wonderful book helps adults speak to children at their emotional level to cope and hopefully understand that sometimes bad things do happen.