The Valley of Song: Week 2

Goudge’s Narrative of Jesus & the Adventures of Children

The Valley of Song and God So Loved the World, both by Elizabeth Goudge

“It was a very odd universe but not lonely at all… how protected human beings were! Not only had they each of them a Great One all their own, but they had, too, a starry beast watching over them in the sky.”

🌿 Elizabeth Goudge, The Valley of Song

Two Goudge books

In 1951, Elizabeth Goudge published two books in the same year. She was nursing her ailing mother who was at death’s door and writing away at two books: a children’s fairytale, The Valley of Song, and also a narrative of the life of Jesus, God So Loved the World.

The latter was hailed by novelist Daphne du Maurier as "a deeply thoughtful and most reverent piece of work."

Goudge’s biographer Christine Rawlins said of God So Loved the World:

“She had produced a life of Christ which was a readable story for people of all ages, from the Godchildren to whom the book was dedicated, to the readers of women's magazines.”¹

These two books, The Valley of Song and God So Loved the World, both on her desk at the same time, certainly speak to one another about the mysteries of love, grief, creativity, and longing.

Join us today for a look at how Goudge’s narrative of Jesus parallels the adventures of the children in The Valley of Song.

The Valley of Song and God So Loved the World, both by Elizabeth Goudge and both on my Goudge bookcase.

The Height of Children

I took a longer look at the theology in her story of Jesus that gave rise to the plot in The Valley of Song here:

Becoming like a Child...

But this one passage in God So Loved the World seems to hold so much of what we are reading now in The Valley of Song that I will include it now: