Title: Make Room: a child’s guide to Lent and Easter
Author: Laura Alary
Illustrator: Ann Boyajian
Published by: Paraclete Press
Price: £8.99 (Amazon)
Good for: Families with children aged 3–10 years old who want to introduce them to the Easter story focusing on the transforming nature of the story
Best bit: The book is written with simple language and engaging pictures which will enable any family to chat about Lent traditions and their meanings.
Worst bit: It’s really hard to explain what the story is, as it moves smoothly back and forth between telling Jesus’ story (his 40 days in the wilderness, his teaching, his death and resurrection) and describing traditions of Lent and Easter (such as making space for God in our lives, crossing our arms in prayer etc).
More:
Laura Alary wrote this book after she was unable to find a book to share with her own children. She used the book at home for many years before it was published and made available for the rest of us to enjoy!
It’s a book which deals gently and carefully with this most mysterious and serious story in the Bible, opening up the narrative so that it is not just about the story of Jesus’ death but of his life and its meaning for us.
I think it’s a fab book to introduce children to Lent and Easter and to be able to chat about your own family and church traditions for this season, as well as the meaning of it for us personally. Laura is not looking to explain Jesus’ death in terms of penal substitutionary atonement but is looking beyond it at other metaphors used in the Bible to explain the deep significance of this story to us all.