The Parable of the Lily - a book review

Hello everyone.  Before I plunge into today's great book let me give you the answer to yesterday's puzzler...

                                                "Beezus and Ramona" by Beverly Cleary



Here is the book I have chosen for this day and for this time:

Title:  The Parable of the Lily

Author: Liz Curtis Higgs

Illustrator:  Nancy Munger

Ages:  3-7

About the book:

This book is the perfect read for the Easter season and also a lovely gift to tuck inside your child's Easter basket.  The story centres around a little girl named Maggie, a farmer's daughter, who receives a gift in the mail from her father that she is not too fond of (she would have rather received a doll or a toy).  It appears to be an old box of dirt with some instructions for gardening attached to it.  Who in the world would want that old thing?  She puts the unwanted gift in the basement and forgets all about it all winter long and then in the spring she runs across it again. She tosses it out the cellar door and it lands in the family garden.  Unknown to her the box of dirt contained a bulb, and that bulb  now nestles in the ground. After some rain and sun and nourishment from the soil,  low and behold a beautiful Easter lily appears and starts to bloom.  Maggie is overjoyed with the miracle of such a beautiful flower rising from what she had considered a worthless pile of old dirt.  Higg's simple tale is interspersed with short Bible passages that parallel the life of Jesus all through the book.  The illustrations add so much to the text and the expression are amazing.

The reader takes away the message that new life begins with Easter (Christ's resurrection). It is a beautiful message allowing you to reflect on God's sovereign love and His promises for our lives. The book shows us that a simple humble gift (Jesus, God's son) can blossom into a beautiful promise of hope and a security and ensure a blessed future for everyone, should they decide to accept it.   

About the author:

Funny, award-winning author and speaker, Liz Curtis Higgs has presented more than 1,500 inspirational programs for audiences in all fifty states and six foreign countries, including her beloved Scotland. She currently tours with the Women of Faith Conferences .She's the author of over thirty books, with well over two million in print, including her nonfiction bestseller, Bad Girls of the Bible, her Gold-Medallion award-winning children's book, The Pumpkin Patch Parable, and her best-selling historical novels, Mine Is the Night & Here Burns My Candle, plus Thorn in My Heart. Liz lives with her husband and too many cats in their 19th-century farmhouse in Kentucky.

Favorite Verse: Psalms 16:11 - "You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand."

About the illustrator:

I have always loved drawing animals and children....and am grateful that I have been able to make a living full time as an illustrator. I graduated from Art Center College of Design in Illustration.

I live on a farm in Michigan with my husband, horses, a dog, a cat and a parrot. When I'm not in my studio, I love to ride my horses with friends, walk the dog in our woods and do plein air painting. 

I have illustrated over 80 Childrens & Chapter books. Some of the Publishers I have worked with include:
Augsburg Fortress
Bethany Backyard
Harper & Row
Macmillian
McGrawHill
Oxford Press
Scott, Foresman
Silver Burdett & GInn
Standard Publishers
Tommy Nelson
Tyndale House
Wiley & Sons
Zondervan

                                                                  Book Review Rating:  8 ( Fantastic!)

Read on and read always!  G'Day to you.