PPBF – Tomorrow’s Lily

Gardens near me are in full bloom! Hooray! And I found a Perfect Picture Book that celebrates special flowers that bloom there.

Title: Tomorrow’s Lily

Written & Illustrated By: Chris Raschka

Publisher/Date: Greenwillow Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers/2024

Suitable for Ages: 4-8

Themes/Topics: daylily, friendship, days of the week, life cycle

Opening:

Pretty lily.

You bloom for just one day.

You open in the sun, and close at the moon, and your lily life is done.

Brief Synopsis: A reflection on a daylily with its brief life and how it, like a person, blooms for others.

Links to Resources:

• Get out in the garden with your kids;
• Try these flower craft ideas;
• If you were a flower, what type would you be? For whom who would you bloom?

Why I Like this Book:

With sparse, lyrical language and gorgeous watercolor illustrations, Raschka invites readers to ponder life as a daylily which, as its name suggests, lives just one day. What would you do if your lifespan lasted a mere 24 hours? Who would you choose to befriend, whose life would you try to beautify, to make better? For whom would you bloom?

Organized by the days of the week and with a spread recounting a lily’s day, readers can see the types of backyard creatures for which the lily blooms. And Raschka reminds readers that “we’re all like lilies” – we also “bloom for others” and “we come and we go.” Thankfully, the memory of lilies “lasts forever”, as do memories of friends.

Younger readers will appreciate the warm feeling of friendship and comfort that pervades Tomorrow’s Lily. I think even babies will enjoy looking at the sunny illustrations filled with loveable animals and colorful flowers and listening to the minimal text. Older children and adult readers can explore the concepts of limited lifespans, living each day to the full, and helping to make others’ lives more beautiful.

A Note about Craft:

So much to discuss here! First, Raschka adds layers by including the days of the week and times of day. He also addresses the daylily directly as “you”, he asks the lily to “bloom for me”, and he changes perspective to remind readers that “we’re all like lilies”, blooming for others. What a wonderful metaphor! Finally, although the illustrations include animals and insects that stand in for humans and seem to have human characteristics, and although the daylilies themselves appear to stand like humans with stems like bodies and blooms like faces, Raschka doesn’t anthropomorphize these characters by having them speak.

This Perfect Picture Book entry is being added to Susanna Hill’s Perfect Picture Book list. Check out the other great picture books featured there!