The Morning Everything Changed

The morning everything changed looks at the Easter story from a different perspective. We appreciated how it looks at what it would be like to be in Bethany during that time and hearing the news and not really knowing what was happening. Because the story was focused on the happenings in town, and amongst kids (and animals) in Bethany, it seems to leave out some of the important details, of why it was happening and what happened to Jesus. And it was a little unrealistic with kids running pretty quickly from Bethany to Jerusalem, but overall, it's a good book with a unique take on Easter. Cute illustrations, too.

The Morning Everything Changed provided a calm and thoughtful way to explain Easter to my young child without overwhelming them, gently answering difficult questions while keeping the focus on hope, love, and reassurance. I appreciated how the family-centered conversations modeled exactly how parents can guide children through big spiritual ideas, and the soft, comforting illustrations made the message feel safe and approachable. My child connected with the characters and began to understand that Easter is about hope overcoming fear, and it has now become a meaningful part of our Easter reading tradition.

The topic of this book, Christ's resurrection on Easter Sunday after His crucifixion on Good Friday is no easy task for a children's book. The story is simplified for children to digest and while it is successful in some respects it fails in others. After they find the empty tomb, for example, they immediately change course to accepting that he resurrected without anyone having seen Him. At least one sceptic would have been nice. Or maybe Jesus showing up. He did appear to many people after the resurrection. The words were a little hard to read as well. I'm still giving 4 stars because I want the story out there.

This was a well-written account of the death and resurrection of Jesus as it may have been viewed from the eyes of a child. There was fear and uncertainty present in the accounts, but the book never went into any detailed descriptions of the crucifixion and no harsh pictures were present in the lovely illustrations. I would have loved having this in my classroom library when I was a first-grade teacher in a Christian school.

Great book sharing the death and resurrection of Jesus in a simplified way for our younger children. At the end of the book there is a page called, "True facts about Easter Morning." This is an awesome way to review the facts with those you are reading the book with to embrace deeper discussion. The graphics a beautiful! Highly recommend.