Eric Says Please in the third and final instalment in the epic ‘Eric’ trilogy, now found on Christian bookstalls across the nation, probably best aimed at 3-8 year olds. (Actually, maybe I’m wrongly assuming it’s the final instalment?! Who knows, maybe Hankey’s gonna complete the ACTS prayer mnemonic and have an Eric Says Wow! for Adoration?!)

If you’re familiar with Eric Says Sorry and Eric Says Thanks (my review of the latter is here), then you’ll know what to expect. If not, think fun, cheery, contemporary rhyming prose as we follow the escapades of little lad Eric, with Xavier Bonet providing bright, stylised illustrations. Each story doubles up as an opportunity to reflect on the nature of prayer, or more generally how we can relate to God. And whereas the first two books focus in on gratitude and forgiveness respectively, this latest book focuses on our need to depend on God.

But that’s what I love about Dai’s stories: they’re not simply a case of being told to pray more, or in this case ‘say please…‘ more. As Good Book Company editorial director Carol Laferton has explained, they’re not simply about morals and manners, where ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ are simply ‘magic words’ that unlock the door to happy parents. They dig a bit deeper and raise more fundamental questions. In this case, Eric is learning that we’ve been created as dependent beings. Whereas self-sufficiency is often the modus operandi of our culture (“you can do it… follow your dreams… if you put you’re mind to it, you can be who you want to be…”), Eric’s adventure offers an alternative narrative. As he goes through an average day at school, Eric faces various moments where he’s faced with the choice of either ‘going it alone’ or asking for help. And Hankey has a brilliant way of gently showing that actually how we make this choice is often driven by pride.

Of course, this raises the important connection that ‘saying please’, i.e. depending upon God in prayer, is actually about us growing in humility, as we learn to see that we’re not independent. Ultimately this is not just about needing each other, but about being dependent on our Creator and Father in heaven. And indeed towards the end of the story, Eric’s Grandpa plays the wise mentor role and takes Eric to James 4:6, “Pride will always make us humble, but God gives grace to the truly humble”.

The story then finishes with Eric’s Grandpa helping him to pray a short prayer as they walk home from school (“you don’t need words that are big and smart; just be yourself and speak your heart”), in which Eric asks for God to sort out a conflict with one of his friends that has arisen during the day. In a lovely closing moment, Eric is amazed as God answers the prayer, with Eric playing his part in that answer. It’s a great example of prayer as something natural and ‘everyday’, rather than something just for church or ‘before bed’.

It’s worth noting that these books aren’t ‘intense’, and would make great presents, even if a child is not from a Christian family. They introduce Christian prayer as something attractive, dismantling a few unhealthy stereotypes along the way, and I imagine would start conversations and ponderings amongst non-Christian kids and their parents/guardians alike.

Presentation-wise, I was delighted to find the story text is a lot larger than it was in Eric Says Sorry, which is a great improvement. Each of the three books also includes a ‘game to play’, a ‘verse to say’, and a ‘prayer to pray’, and you can download digital copies of the artwork for Sunday school lessons, kid’s slots, toddler groups, etc.

Pick up the book from the publisher here. To get a feel for Eric Says Please, you can watch Dai reading the book below:

*****

Full disclosure: The publisher sent me a copy of the book for free, but I hope this is still a fair and honest review!

I’ve heard it said a few times recently that ‘gratitude is subversive’. I like that. It’s probably fair to say that, living amidst what has been deemed ‘Generation Me’, thankfulness can sometimes seem a bit of a rare find. The under-current of entitlement thinking hardly seems particularly conducive to  gratitude.

That said, I once read a Buddhist who argued that gratitude was subversive because it taught us not to ask for more (and thus subverted the consumeristic norms of capitalism). Yet her point ended up being that gratitude’s positive ‘blessing’ was that it reinforced that we were sufficient in ourselves. I’m sure there’s something valuable in refuting the whole consumer thing, but that analysis also struck me as odd. It seems to me that gratitude is actually all about being dependent upon Another. As a Christian I believe that to be God, our Father in heaven, the giver of all good gifts. In that sense, we’re quite obviously not sufficient.

As one writer in the Bible puts it:

Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.

– 1 Chronicles 29 v 14

That’s all a long way round to saying that I think it’s brilliant to have children’s books that emphasise the importance of saying ‘thank you’, but that also, crucially, introduce us to the generous God from whom we have received every good thing we have.

And that’s exactly what we have in ‘Eric Says Thanks’, a new kids’ book by Welsh pastor and part-time rapper Dai Hankey.

In essence the story is a fun adventure, with inquisitive and chirpy Eric embarking on a quest to find out who’s to thank for the toast he enjoys for breakfast.

After asking his mum, she points him in the direction of the baker, so Eric heads off to visit him. However, the baker in turn suggests Eric thank the delivery driver, and this pattern continues as we get to meet a whole host of other cheery characters in this bread supply chain. Finally Eric visits the wise old farmer who suggests that actually Eric should be thanking God.

Dai’s rhyming prose is a delight to read aloud. If you’ve heard Dai speak or you follow him on Twitter, then you won’t be surprised to discover that plenty of Dai’s trademark ‘epic’s and ‘buzzing’s are found on Eric’s lips. Likewise, the illustrations by Xavier Bonet are fun and bright, with what I felt was an American 50’s retro feel to them.

Admittedly, our oldest daughter (2) is not quite in the intended age of the audience (3-7), yet she’s still enjoyed the story. And because she’s already becoming accustomed to our family rhythms, such as ‘giving thanks’, there’s that connection between the story and real life. In that sense the story is a great tool to embedding thankfulness in practice – rooted in the ultimate Giver. As Dai suggests in the book, you can take your kids on their own ‘Eric trail’ and think through all the different people to thank when you’re enjoying a meal together – not least God himself.

A minor thing is the size of the font, which does seem smaller than most of the children’s books lovingly scattered around our family room.

Eric Says Thanks is a really fun children’s book, with a simple but revolutionary message. Pick it up from its publisher here. And here’s Dai giving a read-through:

*****

Full disclosure: The publisher sent me a copy of the book for free, but I hope this is still a fair and honest review!

It’s often said that prayer is one of the great privileges of the Christian life. When you stop and think about it, talking to God, well, it’s an incredible claim.

Of course some would say that’s just deluded. Maybe others would call it egotistical or individualistic. Others still (and perhaps especially those coming from a religious perspective) might label such a definition as offensively simple.

Of course Jesus’ words in Matthew 6 seem to kick some of that into touch. He teaches us to pray, saying “Our Father…”. One of the outrageous claims of Christianity is that it’s possible for us (yes, even messed up, self-obsessed, apathetic us) to approach the God of the Universe as a loving Father, if we’ve become united with the Father’s Son, Jesus Christ, through faith.

And yet even when the stupendous, smack-between-the-eyes reality of that hits you afresh, sometimes with prayer we just don’t know where to start. Our personal prayers can become dry. We suffer from mental drift. Perhaps it all seems slightly repetitive.

That’s why the ‘5 Things to Pray For Your Church’ series seems so brilliant. It’s both so simple and yet so obvious, and yet there’s not heaps of books like it.

Sure, there’s books like the Valley of Vision, which serve you up with some meaty pre-written prayers to ‘pray along’ with. Likewise, I’ve been really helped by Andrew Case’s Water of the Word which is a collection of prayers particularly for husbands. And then there’s Don Carson’s A Call to Spiritual Reformation, which I found to be eye-opening in its challenge to pray in line with God’s own purposes and promises in Scripture. But with this book, you’re actually given a guiding day-by-day hand to help you think about what it is you could pray. Author Rachel Jones does this by modelling a pattern of listening to God’s word and then suggesting things to speak back to God in response. It is praying saturated in Scripture, yet nonetheless heartfelt and earthed.

The format of the series is that on each double-page Rachel focuses on a particular passage, which in turn provides an overall theme. In this book these are all related to health of a church (e.g. using our gifts, or holding to truth, or giving generously). Rachel then unpacks each passage/theme into 5 short pray-able nuggets (hence the title!). Rather than putting these in the form of verbatim prayers, these take the form of a brief paragraph in which Rachel provides some ideas (helpfully often quite specific) of what it might look like to pray in line with that particular Bible passage. Personally, I like that because it still leaves it up to me to phrase and express my prayer to God according to my own personality and vocabulary. You could even use a journal to do this if you’re that kind of person!

And though the book is wonderfully small and thin, it isn’t one you’ll want to finish quickly. That’s not the point. Neither is it an in-depth explanation of prayer (although Carl Laferton’s brief introduction is pretty handy). It’s more of a guidebook, to be taken slowly, a resource to accompany you as you get on with praying.

Practically, given there’s 21 of these passages/themes, I guess an obvious way to use this resource would be to take one passage/theme per week, and then from Monday to Friday to read one of the 5 ‘nuggets’, spending a couple of minutes each day praying for your church. There’s even space on each double-page to jot down particular people on your mind that week. And, honestly, if you did that each week for twenty-one weeks then I’m pretty confident you won’t be regretting parting with the very affordable £2.69 that it currently costs to get your hands on it. Not only that, but we trust God will have answered those prayers according to his purposes too!

So if you feel like your prayer life could do with a bit of support, a bit of inspiration or input, then you’ve only got the price of a pint to lose: get this book and give it a go. I’d imagine it would also be great to give away to a church small group, or perhaps to some of the leaders in your church as they consider what it looks like to partner in prayer for the church.

And when your twenty-one weeks are up (or however you manage it), Rachel has also written ‘5 Things to Pray for the People you Love’, as part of the same series, so you don’t have to stop there!

*****

Full disclosure: The publisher sent me a copy of the book for free, but I hope this is still a fair and honest review!