When I was a student in seminary (seems a lifetime ago!), our library would periodically leave books out, to take for free or for perhaps for a dollar. Among the books on one occasion was this one: Faith, Hope and Hilarity: The Child's Eye View of Religion. Being a fan of Dick Van Dyke (who isn't?), I took advantage of the opportunity to add it to what was then my meager, but growing, library. I no longer know whether or not I paid anything for this book, but it remains one of my prized possessions.
As the liner notes are quick to point out, "Dick Van Dyke didn't really write this book." Rather, it contains the observances and utterances of children, collected by Van Dyke, who it is noted had served as a Sunday School teacher for some years. The introduction also provides a few insights into Van Dyke's own family, which are especially interesting if one knows any of his children through their own acting careers, which naturally only arose years after this book was published (my wife and I are currently working our way through Diagnosis: Murder, in which Dick Van Dyke appears alongside his son, Barry).
I do admit to reading these reflections with a bit of sadness, because I know another side of Van Dyke's story that, naturally, didn't make it into the book: that Van Dyke struggled with alcoholism for many years (he first admitted this publicly only a few years after the book was published). I'm also aware that his marriage to his then-wife ended in divorce some years later. I point these things out not to condemn Van Dyke. He's been open about his own feelings of guilt over these incidents. Rather, it is simply to reflect an understanding that things can be hard even for those who bring others so much happiness, and seeing this snapshot of his life more than 50 years ago serves to remind me that all of us are dealing with things that few others, if any, know about, and that we should thus deal with people kindly whenever possible.
Part of the reason I value this book so highly is, admittedly, a pure coincidence, but one which I discovered only after having secured the book and taken it home. It turns out that the book is autographed by Dick Van Dyke, himself! At least, I'm reasonably sure that the autograph is authentic. I haven't verified it through any authority, and don't know any of the people who purchased the book or to whom it was originally given (the extra bit below the autograph makes clear this was a gift, and the original purchasers would presumably have secured the autograph for their friends). So, any claim I make to having Dick Van Dyke's autograph has to come with those caveats, but I like to believe that I do indeed have the real thing.
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