Small Talk: Learning From My Children About What Matters Most

Named as author of one of the Top Ten Religion Books of 2011by Publishers Weekly, Amy Julia Becker urges her readers in her book, Small Talk, to listen closely to the questions asked and thoughts prompted by children because they can enrich our personal and spiritual lives.Every day, one of Amy Julia Becker's children says something that prompts her to think about life in a new way. What 'lasting' mean William wonders when he hears a song about God being an everlasting God. If the children who died went to heaven, then why are we sad Penny asks, when she passes by a funeral for a victim of the Sandy Hook shootings. I don't wanna' get 'tized! says Marilee about baptism.These conversations deepen Amy Julia's relationships with her children, but they also refine her own understanding of what she believes. In Small Talk, Amy Julia draws from the wisdom and curiosity of those young voices to reflect on beauty and kindness, tragedy and illness, prayer and miracles. As she moves through the basic questions her kids posed when they were very young to the more intellectual questions of later childhood, she invites parents to learn from day-to-day conversations with their own children.This eloquent parenting book is about the big questions little hearts ask, the thoughts their words provoke, and the laughter and soul-searching their honesty brings to parent and child alike.