Lauren Ducommun

My son is in 5th grade and often asks questions about what other world religions believe. The only book on our shelf that dives into specifics is a little booklet that I read for a seminary class. While informative, it contained an abundance of specific details, and I thought he would be best off starting with a short overview. I’ve seen The Story of Religion by Betsy Maestro recommended on several homeschooling groups and blogs, so picked up a copy from our library to review.

If you haven’t seen any books by Betsy and Giulio Maestro, they are so lovely, and they communicate in such a kind and considerate way about hard topics like colonization and even religion. I appreciate how she doesn’t speak ill of others but views people from different cultures, time periods, or religions with dignity and respect.

In The Story of Religion, Betsy introduces readers to religious beliefs and worldviews from ancient times (including Sumer, Egyptian, and Greek beliefs) as well as the major world religions today. The pages are full of beautiful illustrations of various religious practices, symbols, and artifacts.

She spends several pages introducing the following world religions and how they came to be: Taoism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam. She also briefly mentions animism, syncretism, agnosticism, and atheism.

We will most likely read through her book in sections, talking about different world religions as they come up. At the end of the picture book, Betsy Maestro shares her more personal beliefs, and it is pretty obvious that she is a strong universalist. On her last page, she writes:

“There is no one way to seek God–no one way to look at the world. There are countless paths to Enlightenment, Truth, Paradise, and Heaven, and there are many ways to worship. Some people believe that their ways and ideas are the only right ones… The fact that in this world there are so many people following so many different paths to God shows that there is no one right way.”

Instead of skipping this page, this could be a great segway into studying postmodernism or universalism, or simply worldviews in general, for older elementary students. As what Maestro shared is a common worldview held by many people in our own culture.

Overall, I’d be happy to add this resource to our home library and to our homeschool curriculum.

The Story of Religion
by Betsy Maestro
Collins, 1999
48 pages