When a young girl is picked to play Mary in her class’s Christmas play, she believes her big break has come! She is the star of the show. But as she tries to act out her iconic, Christmas-pageant scenes, things seem to go wrong: there’s a boat on stage. One shepherd carries a mop! And who cast a lion in the nativity play?
But she is only one of the book’s two narrators. The other is Sam, a classmate who explains, as the show goes on, that each of these unlikely additions has something to say about the true star of the Christmas story (hint: it’s not Mary).
There’s a Lion in my Nativity is a delightful Christmas book for young readers. It rhymes, it’s funny, there’s a bit of that chaos that always makes my daughters laugh—and yet it points toward a deeper truth, one that we need to hear around Christmas, sure, but also throughout the rest of the year. We are not the star of the show—Jesus is. Sometimes it takes a lion in a manger to help us see that.
There’s a Lion in my Nativity!
Lizzie Laferton; Kim Barnes (2020)
Disclosure: I did receive a copy of this book for review, but I was not obligated to review this book or compensated for my review in any way. I share this book with you because I love it, not because I was paid to do so.