This is the best Christmas gift
you can give your child!
— Janet Morana, Executive Director, Priests for Life
(Former 1st and 2nd grade teacher)


Click here to order Little Star.

There are all kinds of Christmas stories on the market for children.  Sadly, the vast majority of them have been so secularized and commercialized that children never learn the real reason why Jesus came to us as a Babe that first Christmas night.

You know that He did so in order that He might die for us and make it possible for us to enter into the joy of eternal life with Him in heaven.  Or to use that well-known verse from John’s Gospel: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that those who believe in Him may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16).

It goes without saying that you want to teach all the little children in your life that important lesson.

But how?

Thanks to acclaimed author Anthony DeStefano, (This Little Prayer of Mine, A Travel Guide to Heaven, and Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To) you can use the holy season of Christmas to plant the seed of this vital message in their heads.

In fact, when asked about Little Star, DeStefano said: “This is by far the best thing I’ve ever done.  I don’t think I’ll ever be able to top it.”

That’s because, although written for children and filled with Mark Elliott’s beautiful illustrations ...

... Little Star is not just for children!

It’s a lesson for people of all ages and every generation.  In fact it’s the single-most important lesson Our Lord taught.  It is a lesson He gave, not only in words, but in action. 

It is the lesson sacrificial love!

And the character DeStefano brilliantly chooses to teach this lesson is the star of Bethlehem!

It all begins a short time before the birth of Jesus. As the glorious day approaches, the stars in the sky are very excited.  They know a great King is to be born and each one strives to shine the brightest.  But when Little Star decides to join in, the bigger stars ignore and ridicule his efforts. 

Then one night, a Child is born.  “Could this be the One,” the stars ask one another?  But when they look down to the plains surrounding Bethlehem, all they see is a poor family, a tired donkey, and the shabby stable.  The stars all react the same way, by saying, “That can’t possibly be a king. We’ve been fooled.”

And isn’t that the same reaction the Scribes and Pharisees had when Christ walked among them?  “How can this shabbily dressed son of a carpenter possibly be the Messiah?  Look at him!”

That failure to see Christ in the people and experiences of our lives persists to this day.  How often do we fail to see Christ because of outward appearances?  When we fail to see Him homeless on the street, when fail to see Him struggling with Alzheimer’s in a nursing home, when we fail to see Him being denied food and water because He cannot speak out in His own defense, and when we fail to see Him grasping for life inside the womb of mothers who’ve been told He is nothing but a “mass of tissue”?

Little Star teaches all of us how we are to act in each of those modern-day, real-life situations.  Namely, to do as Christ did and die to ourselves for the sake of others!

And that’s just what Little Star does. He is not fooled by the outward appearances that surround Jesus’ birth.  He sees through them and realizes that the newborn Child who is wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger is the Son of God! 

And when Little Star sees the tiny Babe shivering from the cold, he knows he’s got act!

But what can he do? 

The answer to that question is what makes Little Star one of the most important books you will ever read to the young children in your life.  It’s important, not only because of the lesson it teaches, but because little children will relate to Little Star!  They will hear what he did ...

... and they will want to follow his example! And when they follow his example, they will really be following Christ and learning the lesson of sacrificial love!

And when that happens, your child will have the key to true peace and happiness—not only in this life, but in the life to come.

Is there any better present you can give your child this Christmas season? Is there any better present you can give anyone—including yourself?

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2010 Anthony DeStefano. All rights reserved.