The Horn Book Guide

RELIGION

Swartz, Nancy Sohn

In Our Image: God's First Creatures

32 pp. | Jewish Lights | September, 1998 | Trade ISBN 1-879045-99-0 $$16.95

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Melanie Hall. In a retelling of the story from Genesis, God creates humans "in Our likeness," and each animal shares a characteristic with the new humans, such as gracefulness from swans and curiosity from chimpanzees. Thus "nature [lives] in humankind." Hall's scratchboard and watercolor illustrations lend accessibility to Swartz's formal language, which echoes that of the Bible while bringing a modern sensibility to the story.

Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth