I had reservations about the wisdom of condensing 15 religions, with all their complexities, into 62 pages. But The Kids Book of World Religions, a clearly written and organized primer for young readers, goes a long way toward assuaging my doubts. This text introduces the world’s dominant faiths, providing an overview of the beliefs held by billions of people. Grouping religions by country of origin, author Jennifer Glossop avoids making any one practice or geographic region central in her discussion. While her focus is on religious practices, she also briefly describes how religions intersect with culture and society, though she avoids mention of specific religious conflicts or atrocities carried out in the name of faith.

Glossop devotes several pages to each religion, including in her discussion such elements as teaching and beliefs, scriptures, and festivals. Text boxes focus attention on central tenets of each faith or provide definitions for key concepts like reincarnation (the book also includes a glossary). These “quick fact” boxes, along with John Mantha’s capable illustrations, keep the book from becoming too dense with text. World Religions has remarkable breadth, covering Baha’i to Zoroastrianism, with brief mention of the indigenous religions in Africa, Australia, and North America. This breadth does come at the expense of in-depth discussion, and practitioners of these various faiths may find Glossop’s explanations reductionist; too often she is forced into generalizations in order to make her points in a small space. But as an introductory text, this succeeds in explaining the basics and articulating the “big questions” that drive people to religion, and thereby gives the audience a firm foundation for further, more analytical research.