Official Review: The Easter Lamb by Mark Conte

memory · Post by **memory** » 23 Apr 2015, 10:13

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Easter Lamb" by Mark Conte.]

4 out of 4 stars

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The Easter Lamb by Mark Conte is a children’s book set in 1938 about the daring plan of four children, between the ages of eleven and five, to rescue the lamb intended for Easter dinner. The Vianello family purchases a live lamb for Easter dinner every year and the book begins with the three Vianello boys helping their father select the latest lamb. The Easter lamb is purchased and the boys promptly name her Delilah because she is pretty. Once the boys have Delilah at home, all of the neighborhood children flock to their house to play with the lamb. After playing with Delilah all evening, the Vianello boys and their next door neighbor Skipper decide that they can’t allow Delilah to become Easter dinner and must come up with a plan to save her. The children enlist the help of their kind hearted neighbor Mr. Johnson, without being entirely honest about what they need help with, and have to avoid the sharp eyes of “The Ancient One” who knows everything going on in the neighborhood.

I loved this story. The book is light-hearted with abundant humor; at one point Delilah gets into the wine. The children in the book were all really likeable children with good hearts. I could particularly relate to Skipper because she was a tomboy and was very capable of holding her own with the three Vianello boys. I would consider this to be along the lines of a fable where the main characters face adversity and then all involved learn major life lessons along the way.

The author's writing style is full of imagery and really allows the reader to picture the setting and the events as they happen. Humor is embraced which I think is important when writing a story for children. While the story has biblical undertones, they are subtle and make for a really good message at the end.

The book is probably best suited to children between ages six and twelve. I think the really young ones might be distressed by the imagery of the meat market at the beginning and the thought of sacrificing a lamb for dinner. Children beyond the age of twelve would probably find the story cute, but would not necessarily find it as interesting. It would be an excellent book for adults to read with their children because the adults will appreciate both the message and the humor.

My rating for The Easter Lamb is a four out of four stars. I loved both the story and its characters and feel it would be a great book for parents to read with their children. The only thing that may be an issue for some is the use of Italian in some parts of the story. I did not feel that the Italian distracted from the flow of the book so I did not remove any stars, but some may find it irksome.

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The Easter Lamb
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