Reviews for Where the lilies bloom

The average rating for Where the lilies bloom based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-12-30 00:00:00 Jeff Curtis I can't believe I have been on GoodReads for over a year and just remembered this book! I read it so many times when I was in middle school-it was one of my favorites! I loved books like this one that were about kids who had to make it in the world alone because their parents are absent for some reason. (In this book, the parents were absent because they were DEAD!) I think I was drawn to that plot line because I just wanted my parents to leave me along. (Not that I wanted them dead. I didn't particularly want them dead. I just wanted them to leave me along.) But anyway... There was a movie (maybe a made for TV movie) based on this book. I remember watching the movie, and I still remember rather vividly the scene where the older guy who wanted to marry the quiet, shy, maybe mentally slow older sister (played by the actress who went on to play Bailey on WKRP in Cincinnati) was really sick with some sort of lung ailment. The kids put him in a bathtub while he still wore his grimy looking long johns and poured steaming hot smothered onions over him. This scene led to a inside joke in my family that I am not even going to try to explain.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-09-26 00:00:00 Todd Traub Written in 1969, this incredible YA book received numerous awards including a National Book Award finalist, New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year, School Library Journal Best Book, Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, and the ALA Notable Children's Book. This is a touching, moving, realistic portrayal of poverty in the Trail Valley of the Appalachian Great Smokey Mountains of NE North Carolina. Mary Call was 14 when her father died, leaving her with unrealistic promises to fulfill and three siblings to raise. Unrealistically as stubborn as her father's short-sighted, unyielding demands, Mary valiantly attempts adherence to his edicts of keeping the family together while never accepting assistance from anyone, never allowing her "dimwitted" sister to marry the local man who loved her, to hide his death, to bury him in the mountain and to at all times maintain self reliance . Never stooping to over sentiment, this marvelous book is a shining treasure, chocked full of trials, travails and the reality of stubborn misguided loyalty vs the reality of what can and cannot be accomplished against the odds of nature, unrelenting poverty and the terrible burden placed on the shoulders of a mother and fatherless child. As a means of survival, the Call family become wildcrafters harvesting and selling medicinal plants found in the mountains. While this brought a modicum of relief, when an exceedingly harsh winter arrives, Mary Call realizes that while her bravery and courage has enabled the family to survive for a short period of time, forces outside her control mandate that she become more malleable. It is at this point in the story that the authors wonderfully weave the portrayal of Mary Call who, in order to survive, must shift her paradigm to incorporate the fact that while stubbornness is necessary, to survive one must accept the assistance of others and must pave the destiny of her family by opening to the possibility that her father's well-intentioned, but misguided rules cannot be followed. Found in 1,001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up, this is a gem to savor and re-read time and time again.