Customer Reviews

Where the Lilies Bloom

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I am reading, "Where the lilies bloom" at school, and I think it is one of the best books I have ever read. I have read some reviews by people on here who have read this book also and hated it. I don't see how they could hate it. It's about four really poor children whose father eventually dies, and their mother already dead. They have to struggle to keep their father's death a secret, and stop their dreamy 18 year old sister from marrying a so-called "villain". I think this book is really well written, and I hope others who read it share as much enthusiasm as I do. Thanks!

This book transfixed me like no other has for a long time. The story alone is one that pulls in the reader; how will these four children survive against the odds? Very little money, no adult to help them, and they are trying desperately to live up to promises made to their late father before he died.

But it's the language, the writing that really captivates the reader. The voices are so strong; you can hear Appalachia in every utterance; the cadence is so real. I was with this family -- in particular 14-year-old Mary Call -- for the entire journey, sharing their small victories, aching along with their profound sadness. Mary Call is a strong character; with her steely determination she is a force, a great role model for young girls.

I would highly recommend this book to young readers. It's an absolute treasure.

This is a must read book. Mary Call is a fighter against all odds...against Luther Call, against the state that wants to split up her family, against death, against poverty, against uncertainty. In the long run she learns the beauty of the gentleness of her more "simple minded" sister. This book makes you think about life and death and poverty and innocence and love. It is a wonderful picture of rural Appalachian life and of the struggles of growing up poor anywhere.

For girls, it teaches "can-do" through Mary Call's example of strength against adversity. May also have appeal to people interested in "wildcrafting" (herbs, roots).

There are many books that describe hard, mountain life in the Appalachain region, but above all,Where The Lilies Bloom, is a definate favorite of mine! The reason why I like this book is because it's so down-to-earth and realistic. To me, I think everyone should read this book because it shows real family strength during many situations which seemed inescapable. Some things about the book that I liked were the way Mary Call showed strength, bravery, and dedication in keeping the promises she made to her "papa", Roy Luther Call, and the authors' description of life in the Appalachain region. I like those features because throughout the whole book, those two remained constant. Even though Roy Luther's death brought on a variety of problems, Mary Call bore them all without showing signs of fatigue or despair. She always tried to think each situation through and keep it all under wraps. When a situation was formed. I liked the authors' description because they were so vivid and life-like, it seemed to me like I was eavesdropping on the Luther family problems the whole time I was reading about them. However good I thought the book was in general, there were a few parts I didn't like as much as others. For example, I think that at the part where the roof caved in, the fox should not have been there. I feel as if the fox drew too much attention to itself, and not the problem at hand. If the fox had not been added, I think the part would have went smoother. As a whole, I think the book, Where The Lilies Bloom, os a classic that should and probably will be handed down through the generations! I give it two thumbs way, way up!

Where the Lilies Bloom is an excellent book. Our school used it as a book of the month when we studied the character trait of responsibility. It is about a young girl with total responsibility for her family after her father has died. She must also keep the secret of her father's death from all of the neighbors. Mary Call accepts this responsibility and goes on to try and take of here siblings by any means she can. She gathers roots and leaves to provide an income for her family. She keeps her head up and believes she should ask no one for assistance. Our students enjoyed it and I hope you will find it to be a good book also.

I read this book the first time when I was a child. I remember seeing the movie and being fascinated by the life of the mountain people - so far removed from my suburban life. The struggles, bravery and ingenuity of the Luther kids is amazing and touching. I think this book is geared to young teens, but I don't think it can be appreciated by most of that age. It is so sad to read the many reviews from the 12 and 13 year old kids here who "hate it" and who suggest books of the likes of Harry Potter instead. Perhaps once they have expanded their intellect somewhat they might be able to appreciate and understand it's beauty and brilliance.

Where the Lilies Bloom was sort of suspenseful and that is why we kind of liked it. There were several things we didn't like though. The book was sad. We didn't like it when Roy Luther died and left the family to take care of themselves. The book slowed down (in action) a bit in the middle and remained slow until the end. The book needed more action, then it might have gotten 4 stars.We felt that the characters in the book were too hard working. Taking no time to play is not a way to live. We think the family should have gone to an institution to live after Roy Luther died and that way they wouldn't have had to work so hard. A weird part in the book was when Mary Call said the family would have to live in a cave. We would have really been interested to see how that would work out. The movie was even more sad. Especially when Mary Call broke down and cried at the end after the incident with Kiser. The movie characters were nothing like the characters in the book. We imagined them to be one way, and in the movie they were totally different.The movie left out our favorite part, which was when the fox jumped down on Mary Call after the roof of the house caved in. Also, the movie left out a lot of things that happened in the book. We don't know why the movie and the book couldn't have been more similar. The book was much better than the movie.

This is the story of a young girl who has been left to care for her three siblings after their father's death. It chronicles the struggles that Mary Call, the lead character, is left to face alone without the support that many children her age might take for granted (i.e. supporting her brother and sisters, acting as the head of the family, protecting her older sister, Devola, from an older man who is crazy about her, as well as shielding her siblings from the authorities). It is a story about heartache, loss and triumph and is ideal for the young girl or boy who is looking for a "page turner" or an emotional release from life's stresses and strains. In relation to my own experience, I found this book to be a blistering reminder of my own heartache and misfortune, as a child growing up without parent(s) and being "the head of household." This is also an ideal book for teachers who are wanting to enstill empathy and other notable traits within their students. It's a great discussion piece. I only wish that other students in my class had read it (I'm a student criticing a book as part of an assignment for a Children's Literature class at La Sierra University in Riverside, CA 92515). While the rating for this book may seem a little bit high, it is still a very good book worth reading and passing on to others interested in a book with a story line such as this.

Where the Lilies Bloom was a story set in a rural mountain community. Two stars are left out of my rating because I felt it was very shallow at times. Some things struck me as unrealistic. For an example, in the beginning of the book, the protagonist's sister, Devola, was portrayed as a girl with nothing to her. The protagonist, Mary Call, was four years younger than Devola, but Devola was irresponsible and had her head in the clouds. However, at the end of the book, Devola suddenly underwent an immense change, took charge, and became clearheaded.

Despite the book's shortcomings, three stars are merited because I really admired Mary Call's determination and spirit and the way she never gave up. She was not afraid to stand up for herself or for her family. If I had read this book two years ago, I think I would have liked it much more.

'Where the Lilies Bloom' is a fairly good little story of a principled working people who live outside mainstream America; in the Appalachia, to be precise. The small slew of characters are provided early, and mostly we are involved with a family of youths who've just lost their father. He was a proud and obstinate man who expressed his wish that his children get along after his passing without outside aid.

Very thankfully, the quarter-minded king of these parts-Kiser Pease-isn't presented as the sort of pure troglodyte that dominates most of these young reader's stories, the kind that barks over maudlin fables until taken care of in the final five pages. Instead, Kiser is gray, a somewhat sympathetic human being who can't help but cut a lot of corners. He's not quite intelligent enough to practice genuine humility, but still smart enough to avoid living a truly irredeemable existence. He's old fashioned and even superstitious but not unflinching; a man and a land in progress.

However, the youths aren't as interesting, drawn without as many perplexities but with more stereotypes as those in the tradition of 'children getting along without parents', though they carry some human breaths, mostly through their coldly effective Mary Call-who helps them take up 'wildcrafting'. The process of hunting down these profitable plants from their area is admittedly a difficult one to make exciting on the page, but the authors don't even seem to try, throwing us so many of the plant names that the title 'Where the Lilies Bloom' turns into a warning rather than an invitation: this book has many flowers, and lists every kind. This pursuit serves to explain how the family gets along, but such natural descriptions should've stopped long before actually reproducing the entire Call family book guiding their efforts. Speaking of excessive description, the valley in which they live is blasted out of beauty by an assault of adjectives never letting up and stopping our appreciation in the remainder of the tale.

The youths hide the fact of their father's demise (and his corpse itself) in an effort to avoid foster homes, and also face an impending winter every bit as unhelpful as his parting instructions; most if not all of their survival comes across improbably at best.

Near the end of their struggle they are told to leave their very house and we almost proceed into the level of the absurd as Mary in her persistence proposes the family live in a cave rather than join society. However the book wants both sides of probability and takes us back into semi-reality before exploring the avenues of impossibility. Unless of course the authors were planning on giving us a new kind of ending that risked breaking additional genre conventions.

So yes, the ending feels more like a compromise than anything more, but that doesn't leave the book without worth. The concluding balance between the setbacks of entitlement and the setbacks of individualism does leave us with some sense of life, unimpressively unrelenting as it is.