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Saturday, June 22, 2013

Gingerbread House Publishing: Take it to the Queen

Today, I have another beautiful book to review from  Gingerbread House Publishing. It is not a sequel to The Weight of a Mass: A Tale of Faith, but it is written and illustrated in the same style. The book is called "Take it to the Queen: A Tale of Hope." I would send you the publisher's link, but they are currently building a new website, so all links to it are broken at the moment.

"Take it to the Queen" is a tale which involves the relationship of a town and a king. In this story, a king chooses a town to lavish all his goodness upon as he awaits the birth of his future queen who will bear him a prince. The king finally meets his queen and she bears him a son. However, the town has grown selfish and takes for granted all the goodness the king has bestowed upon them.

Like her work, "The Weight of a Mass," Ms. Nobisso writes in allegory. To the adult reader, it is easy to see that the king is God the Father; the queen is Mary; the prince is Jesus; and the ungrateful town represents all of humanity. You might have to point this out to your children, depending on their age, but once they make the connection the story will click on two levels for them. There is a lot of rich symbolism in different aspects of both the story and the artwork. Don't feel bad if you miss a lot of it on your first reading through. I definitely did, but thankfully the inside flaps of the book explains everything to you.

Overall, this was a very good book with a great story and beautiful illustrations. It touched on various theological points including Sacraments, grace, forgiveness of sins, etc. Most importantly though, it will teach your children that Mary is a mediator between Christ and us. This book will show your children that they can turn to her in times of need. I give this book 5 stars. I did like "The Weight of a Mass" better than this book, but it's unfair to compare the two books, as I proclaimed "The Weight of a Mass" to be the best children's book EVER! I also noticed that the first book dealt with faith, and this one dealt with hope. I will have to contact the author to see if a third book is in the works that deals with love.

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