Book Review: My Easter Basket and the True Story of Easter
Board book
14 pages
Written by Mary Manz Simon
Illustrated by Angelika Scudamore
B&H Kids, February 2016
ISBN 978-1433689901
SRP $12.99
Ages:2-4
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
I could NOT be happier to see this book available once again, and all spiffed up with striking new illustrations too!! And happily, this new edition glitters and shines as much or more than the earlier one did.
Let’s face it: The true Easter story is hard for little ones to grasp. Death isn’t something they can understand just yet, let alone that Jesus rose again.
But we still want them to know that there IS a true Easter story, and that their friend Jesus is someone really special.
So why not make the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus more approachable on their level by connecting the events to something they can see and they do understand—a colorful basket filled with grass and eggs and chocolate bunnies and jelly beans.
That’s exactly what this book by Mary Manz Simon does.
The colors in this basket
are my own special way
for me to tell the story
of that first Easter Day.
Green is for palm branches and a parade, purple for sharing bread and wine with His friends. Red is a reminder that Jesus’ death shows his love, chocolate brown for the darkness of the tomb, white for the angel who announced the resurrection, and yellow for the sunshine that reminds us what God did on Easter.
Simple. Age appropriate. True. And like the text, the illustrations are age appropriate too, bright and sweet. We see only three empty crosses in the distance in one picture,
I think it’s quite hard to find acceptable Easter books for young children; I wrote about that here last year. That’s why I’m so happy to see this book experience a well-deserved revival!
Diane
Visit Diane at www.DianeStortz.com.