Like The Priest with the Dirty Clothes and The Lightlings, The Prince’s Poison Cup is an allegorical tale for children, illustrating our redemption.

The Story

When little Ella had to take some yucky medicine, she wondered why something that tastes bad could be beneficial.  In response to her question, her grandfather told her the tale of the prince’s poison cup.

Long ago, the King of Life created a people and forbid them only one thing – the water from the fountain in the center of their park.  When a stranger convinced them to drink it anyway, their hearts turned to stone and moved far away from the King to build their own City of Man.

The only way to heal the people was for someone to drink water from a new fountain – the fountain in the center of the City of Man, which was filled with the poison of the King’s anger.  The King sent his son with a golden cup to collect a portion of the poisoned water.  The prince drank the cupful before the people – and died.

But then a wondrous thing happened.  The King of Life came and touched his son, restoring him to life.  Meanwhile, the water in the fountain became sweet.  The Prince offered it to the people to drink, and it healed their hardened hearts.

The Book

As is true of the other books, The Prince’s Poison Cup has a discussion guide in the back to aid parents in making use of the book with their children.  Justin Gerard has illustrated Sproul’s words here, as well.  The pictures are beautifully done and the book is of a good quality.  These are books we are glad to have in our library.

(Side note:  The picture of  The Grail and the Knight at Grand Allusions really reminds me of this book!)

Disclosure: The publisher provided me with a copy of the book to facilitate this review.  As always, all opinions expressed here are entirely my own.