Illustrator: Abby Jartos
Zonderkids, 2025
Reviewed By Sue Careless
IN THIS powerful picture book about a girl experiencing loss, The Good for Nothing Puddle helps children explore the nature of grief and loss. It does not offer the quick fix of a superficial band aid for those “stuck in sadness.” Instead, it leads them gently and gradually to finding hope in the midst of their pain.
Author Jana Jackson wisely avoids big words like “grief” and “sorrow” and uses simply “sadness.”
Nor does she specify what the actual loss is. The story opens with, “Once there was a girl who lost someone she loved very much.” The young reader can therefore read their own loss into the story, whether a beloved pet or grandparent has died or a friend or family member has moved away. Perhaps the child is attending a new school and misses an old classmate. Whatever the loss, in the picture book we simply see a cheerful red balloon that the young girl has been happily playing with, floating away out of her reach.
Her sadness grows until her tears overflow and form a puddle around her feet. At first, she tries her best to disguise it or make it go away. It felt “yucky, cold and ugly,” and inescapable. Eventually, in her frustration and anger, she cries out to God to take the puddle away. She waits and waits for an answer but nothing happens. He doesn’t seem to be listening.
Then one by one a mud-covered puppy, an exhausted farmer, and a young artist stumble upon the girl and her puddle. Each one finds the puddle extremely helpful in different ways and slowly the girl begins to understand that her “good for nothing” puddle might just be good for something after all.
As she learns to accept her grief, she begins to find happiness again. Filled with moments of sorrow and joy, The Good for Nothing Puddle uses powerful metaphors for dealing with difficult emotions and navigating grief while holding on to faith.
On the inside front cover, we see the girl enjoying many colourful moments with her red balloon but after it floats away, the colour drains out of not only her face but also much of her world. However, after meeting the puppy, the farmer and the young artist, colour gradually seeps back onto the pages and into her life. Her blue puddle never completely disappears but now it serves to water a small garden. And on the inside back cover we see the girl enjoying many new moments of happiness with her three new friends.
This fine picture book is for children who have experienced loss of any kind, big or small. It has been reviewed and endorsed by a Christian counselor specializing in child therapy and teaches children as well as adults how to find hope in darkness. It is good for anyone struggling to find God amid sadness.
It should find its place in church libraries and Sunday schools. That said, hopefully the teacher would be aware of what significant losses her students may have experienced before reading the book with them. Perhaps it would be wiser for the pastor or teacher simply to offer the book to the parent to read with their child at home.
After losing her husband and the father of her four daughters, author Jana Jackson knows all too well about grief and the devastating effect it can have on both adults and children. But she has creatively shown a way to help youngsters develop a faith of their own, even in the midst of loss and sorrow. TAP
BP. MARIANN BUDDE’S sermon at the National Cathedral’s inaugural prayer service in Washington stirred up a great deal of controversy on social media, including amongst traditionally-minded Anglicans.
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IT WAS Christmas Eve. The children had made the journey to Bethlehem, up one aisle and down another in the candlelight, picking up a donkey and a cow and Mary and Joseph and sheep and shepherds on the way. Now they sat by the crèche looking up at the Advent wreath. The Christ candle flamed– Jesus is born!– and one little boy leapt up at the sight of the light (Oh! Oh!) and flung up his arms and said, “Glory to God!”
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IN THIS powerful picture book about a girl experiencing loss, The Good for Nothing Puddle helps children explore the nature of grief and loss. It does not offer the quick fix of a superficial band aid for those “stuck in sadness.” Instead, it leads them gently and gradually to finding hope in the midst of their pain.
THE Archbishop of Kenya has ordered churches under his care to stop allowing speeches by politicians during their worship services. The ban moves the Anglican Church of Kenya into a stricter separation of church and states than is common in the United States, where politicians often visit churches and speak f-rom pulpits during their campaigns.
BELIEVE IT or not, there is a lot for Christians to celebrate in 2025. Can you guess what crucial event in church history occurred 1700 years ago? What important theologian was born 800 years ago? And what great novelist was born 250 years ago? Look through our pages for clues.
IN THE EARLY 1990s, the Rev’d David Short came to Canada to study under J.I. Packer at Regent College in Vancouver. He and his wife Bronwyn planned to return to Australia with their two young sons after David received his masters. Instead, in 1993 he accepted the role of rector of St John’s Shaughnessy in Vancouver, following in the footsteps of the remarkable evangelical preacher, the Rev’d Harry Robinson. But 2002 proved to be a momentous year as the Diocese of New Westminster and the St John’s Shaughnessy congregation were at the epicentre of some tectonic shifts in the Anglican Communion. Their diocese, which was theologically liberal, became the first Anglican diocese in the world to formally authorize the blessing of same-sex unions
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