They say you should never talk about religion or politics at the dinner table, but Mark Macleod wants to bring God back to kid’s bookshelves. The author of a new children’s picture book, God Is, Macleod turned his hand to writing after a successful career as a publisher and lecturer in children’s literature. He was raised as a Presbyterian but turned to the Quaker faith as an adult. We spoke to him about children’s books, religion and whether we are all just a little too politically correct these days. — Amber Robinson
God Is is your second book with a religious theme. What inspired you to write it?
My children are all adults now. I was having a conversation with one of them a year or so ago and we mentioned the word God and she said oh, I don’t think I believe in God anymore. I thought I knew everything about her but it happened while I wasn’t watching you know.
So I went away, and thought well, that’s really her business and it’s not up to me to lecture her and try to change her mind. What I’ll do is go away and think about all the young people who don’t necessarily believe in such things and I will write a story about that.
What is your religious background?
I grew up believing in God, however the kind of god I grew up (I was raised as a Presbyterian) with was the idea of an old man in the sky with a big book that he wrote down everything dreadful that I had done — kind of like a terrifying parent who punished me and made me feel guilty.
I’m more interested in the idea of a God who has positive rather than negative, who is a friend and comfort and life affirming and nurturing force.
And then I started to think about, when I grew up as a child in the 50s, we were told that the whole of our future would be about technology and science that religion would be dead, there would be absolutely no point in belief in the future. Looking back on that, in my eyes, the complete opposite happened. In fact I don’t think that anyone really expected the interest that our society has taken in the metaphysical, the supernatural and belief systems.
I think the reason for that is that the more we have been chasing material wealth, the big house and the big car, the more that we thought would bring us happiness the more disappointed we’ve been. I think it’s a really important time, during the financial crisis, to be talking about “is there anything else”?
It seems to be a bit of a publishing trend at the moment, the ’search for spirituality in a modern world’. I have just finished Eat, Pray, Love which is for adults, but follows that theme.
Exactly. Many of us got all our material things that we thought would make us happy but they didn’t make us happy and so a lot of us are going, so, what else is there? And not just adults, it’s a lot of young people going ’so what else is there’. I think there’s a lot of searching in our world.
I guess I was lucky so far as I was brought up by parents and grandparents who believed there was something else. A lot of young people have been brought up by adults who don’t say that, who say well, ‘you find out for yourself when you’re ready’. So I hope this book is for them.
What I liked about the book was it was non-denominational – you could be talking about anyone’s God. I don’t know if that was your aim, if you wanted to write a particularly Christian book or deliberately kept it kind of free so anyone with a belief in a higher deity could read it to their kids and it would have some kind of resonance.
That’s completely my hope. As I said, I was brought up a Presbyterian, but as an adult I became a Quaker. And first of all as Quakers, we’re not interested in trying to change other people’s beliefs, trying to lecture them.
God Is was thought by the [Australian] school book clubs to be inappropriate to be put in schools. I’m not interested in making kids read this book, so I was not hoping that it would on any reading lists as that would be imposing my ideas on someone else but i thought it would be really good to have in the library if someone wanted to go find it. We’ve gone down that American route where people are so terrified that they might be be seen to be imposing their views on others that nothing gets.
I’ve got Muslim friends and Buddhist friends who say to me, “Get over it, celebrate Christmas. Don’t say Season’s Greetings or Happy Holidays like the Americans do, say Happy Christmas, that’s what it’s about.”
My Buddhist Chinese friend says well, my biggest celebration is Chinese new year, I’m perfectly happy for you to have Christmas. I don’t want you to feel like you can’t mention Christmas in case I’m offended.”
So I kind of feel like in a away, we’re a bit too cautious about this. For me, while it’s really important to create space for people to celebrate different beliefs, it’s also important to have space for mine.
Do you think it’s a kind of political correctness gone mad?
I do, I think we’re too polite and too cautious, which is a funny thing to say about Australians!
What seems to be popular for my generation, many of whom were brought up with fire-and-brimstone scripture classes, is to give our kids information about lots of different religions and allow them to make up their own minds. What do you think of that approach?
I think its a great theory and I think some parents carry that out really effectively. But for other parents, there’s a kind of laziness or absence in it, because being able to explore other religions and explain them to people, you need to have a lot of information and unless you’ve been brought up in those traditions, unless you’ve read them thoroughly and spoken to people se beliefs are shared by those religions, I don’t think you’ll have the information
While I do know of some parents who go on adventure with their kids in learning about a whole range of religious beliefs, I also know others who kind of basically leave them vacant and I’m not sure that that’s very helpful. I think that can result in confusion and emptiness rather than enquiry.
How much do you think a small child can understand the concept of God? When did you start talking about God with your children?
It’s never too early, I think. With all types of learning, it’s about putting concepts to the child in words they can understand. You know, in language we make mistakes before we find the right word, in walking we fall and stumble a lot before we become confident walkers. I think it’s the same thing in belief and understanding the world. When we’re children we think the sun comes up in the morning and comes down at night. Once we get into high school science we learn that we’re the ones that revolve around the sun. I think that we gradually accumulate knowledge Therefore I think it’s really important not just to think you need to need to teach it once and never go back to it again. You have to keep coming back to it. You have to keep the lines open with your kids.
As former National President of the Children’s Book Council of Australia, you must have a rather extensive kid’s book collection. What do you think makes a good book for children, and who are your favourite authors?
Ha ha yes – they’re piled everywhere!
As for what makes a good book… I think unless you have, what we used to call ‘the inner child’, the emotional memories of what it’s like to be a child, then you may as well give up. If you have forgotten what children ate when you were five, or what TV programs were on, you can find that out, the internet will tell you all you need to know. But if you’ve forgotten what it felt like to be the only child in class not invited to someone’s birthday party, if you’ve forgotten what’s it felt like to wet your pants on the bus when you were five, its very difficult as an adult writer to get that back.
I love funny books, and so in Australia, for very young children I love Pamela Allen because she often makes me laugh, her picture books are fabulous. For slightly older children, I love books by Andy Griffiths, or Andrew Daddo for slightly older children again; Margaret Clark makes me laugh or Morris Gleitzman or Paul Jennings.
So laughter’s really important and I hope that’s evident in God Is, as I was surprised when [Sydney Anglican] Bishop Forsyth said recently that there was no place for jokes or humour in church, I completely disagree with that, I actually went to school with Bishop Forsyth and in year 11 he was a very funny kid and he made a lot of us laugh. So I was very surprised to hear him say that. All I can think is that he really means, bad jokes or lame jokes. Humour is a bonding agent, it brings comunities together.
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