Here’s Lily is the first in a new series by Nancy LaRue for girls between 7 and 11.

Honestly, I think 7 or 8 is a little young for the series.  My daughter is almost 10, and I don’t think I would have given this to her any earlier.  It’s plenty “clean,” of course!  but Lily is a middle-schooler, and I don’t think a 7-year-old needs to read about middle school difficulties yet.

I found this to be an enjoyable story with an engaging protagonist.  Lily is a tall, lanky sixth grader with an abundance of red hair, who doesn’t find herself very attractive.  There is an emphasis here on the importance of inner beauty over outer beauty, even while addressing the potential for making the best of what we have externally.

There was an eye roll I could have done without, but it was an eye roll at an obnoxious boy, not at Lily’s parents.

The story, in Ariel’s words:

It’s about a girl named Lily Robinson and when Kathleen, the owner of a local modeling agency, came to her school and told her that she looked very nice that made Lily feel good, because she had always thought she looked like a giraffe.  Kathleen gave her a card for the agency which Lily then gave to her mom, and her parents said something about “if you find God in it, it’s all right if you take the modeling classes.”

A boy at her school had always teased her and a few of her friends, so as she did the modeling classes she made a club called Girlz for her friends, Reni, Zooey, and Suzy to learn what she was learning  so that maybe the boy, Shad Shifferdecker, would stop teasing them.

At first when she went to the agency she forgot to look for God in it, but then something happened to get her attention.  She burned bacon and there was a grease fire.  She tried to put it out with water and it splattered onto her cheeks, so her cheeks were on fire and her dad patted her cheeks to try to put out the fire and he burned his hands.

He had to stay at the hospital for a week later than she did.  As she was crying about her appearance, she found that she was more worried about her looks than her dad’s injuries and that made her realize that she’d been worrying about her looks instead of inner beauty.

Kathleen came to visit and Lily told her of her struggles.  Kathleen helped her through them and said that she was a Christian, too, and that if she’d known Lily was looking for God, she would have pointed Him out a lot.  The agency isn’t about gorgeous on the outside, it’s about poise, and poise comes from making the best of what God gave you.  And Kathleen assured her that she should do the modeling show even though she was burned because it wasn’t about looks, it was about  “self-confidence” or, as they called it, “God-confidence.”

Disclosure: As a “Tommy Mommy,” I received the book above from Thomas Nelson.  Thomas Nelson is also sponsoring this giveaway.  As always, all opinions expressed here are my own (and those of my family).