Lily The Rebel

“All this attitude is going to get you is ME all over you for every little thing you do. Is that understood?” Kresha, Reni, Zooey and Suzy all nodded their heads. “All right,” Officer Horn said. “Now get out of here, all of you. And I repeat, don’t hang out together before school. You see what kind of trouble it gets you into.”
Zooey immediately began to scramble up, but Lily put her hand on her knee.
”You wanted to say something else, Robbins?” Officer Horn said.
”Yes,” Lily said. “I wanted to say –“ She took a deep breath. The prickles stabbed at her. “I want to say no. We’re not going anywhere.”

Book: Lily the Rebel (Young Women of Faith: Lily Series, Book 6) by Nancy Rue, Zonderkidz, 2001

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Target Audience: Girls 11-14

Subjects: Obedience, Authority, Justice, Prejudice

Summary: Sometimes rules are just stupid. And sometimes the authority themselves are unfair and unreasonable. That’s the situation Lily faces when the school security officer targets the Girlz. First it’s giving Kresha a detention merely for going down the wrong side of the steps. Then she’s not only forbidding the Girlz to meet before school, but going so far as to advise the others to not hang out with Lily at all. She makes up rules on the spur of the moment that aren’t even in the school handbook! She’s not the only one though. It seems like all the adults around are unreasonable! Her parents getting on her for talking on the phone too long, teachers making everyone in class change seating just because of two people, and a teacher making fun of Kresha just because she came from a foreign country. Lily is determined to rebel against all of it. The problem is that when an issue of real prejudice and injustice comes, no one trusts her. After all, this is just Lily, the one who “protests” things as simple as seating arrangements. Lily has to figure out how to regain the trust of the authorities in her life if she wants to ever have a hope of overcoming injustice!

Notes: This is the sixth in the Young Women of Faith – the Lily Series, a series of 12 books about a young girl desperately wanting to know God’s will for her life. She wants to know what her “thing” is. Everyone else seems to have one specific passion that’s also their talent. Throughout the series Lily explores many options to figure out what hers is. In this book, she the idea of rebelling against injustice as she learns about figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and the concept of passive resistance. But she is encouraged to read about how Jesus stood up for people compared to how she is doing it. Through her experience she learns how to guard her reputation carefully and only fight true injustice rather than anything that merely squelches her personal interests.

Recommendation Scale: 5/5

Reviewer: J:-)mi

Proverbs 3:8 – "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.

1 John 2:1 – My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.