A World of Faith: Volume 1

 This book, cosponsored by the SLOC Interfaith Roundtable, introduces the remarkable and diverse world of faith to a new generation. It is meant to be a glimpse, a taste, an awakening. Each page opens with a story that tells about the origins of a particular religion or denomination. The author talks about founding events in a simplified way, using the language of the religion/church under consideration. In discussing current practices, the focus is on infancy, coming of age, worship, and marriage rituals. Each page has been read by scholars and clerics from each religion to guarantee both accuracy and tone.

The illustrator has chosen images that are representative of the rich heritage associated with each religion. She emphasizes scenes that include children at church, which illustrate differences and similarities in the way the world worships.

The book is praised by former U. S. president Jimmy Carter who writes that the “concise, descriptive text and beautiful illustrations” make the book an “informative and entertaining resource for children and adults.” He is joined in his sentiment by Joan Campbell Brown, general secretary of the National Council of the Churches in Christ in America (“an attractive, sensitively written book”), and Charles C. Haynes, senior scholar, the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center (“a book that simply and accurately introduces children to the world’s religions” that is “lively and beautiful”).

 Peggy Fletcher Stack was born and raised in New Jersey; studied at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California; traveled through Africa for two years with her news-photographer husband; and worked at Books and Religion in Manhattan before settling down as a religion writer at The Salt Lake Tribune. She currently serves on the advisory boards of PBS’s “Religion and Ethics News Weekly” and the Public Religion Project of Chicago. She and her husband have three children.

Kathleen Peterson was born in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, where she continues to live, but has also spent years of her life in Hawaii and Malaysia and has undertaken painting excursions throughout Central and South America, Nepal, and Thailand. She is the illustrator of The Lesson and Stones of the Temple, among other books. Currently she is the director of the Central Utah Art Center, and each summer she and her husband run the Bennion Teton Boys Ranch in Idaho. They have four children.