Lucy More Needs Less

Lucy More Needs Less

With holiday gift-giving season upon us, I want to call your attention to one of the best children’s books I’ve ever read. It’s a fantasic book about rampant consumerism and the perils of trying to buy happiness.

It’s not carried by a major publisher because the author is not a celebrity. Thank goodness for Lulu.

Lucy More Needs Less examines the ethics of simplicity and moderation, but to a young reader, it is also a lively tale of a preposterously overindulgent family. Seven-year-old Lucy More wants to play with her best friend, Mimi, but is stymied by her inability to find what she needs in the great towers of playthings in and around her house. Her loving parents “cure� her frustration by buying her new toys every day, which makes the towers — and her frustration— grow. Lucy’s wealth of toys eventually proves disastrous, and it is Mimi who shows the More family that the solution to every problem is not found in the marketplace.

It’s written and illustrated by a co-worker of mine, a talented, award-winning graphic artist. You’re gonna fall in love with the illustrations. You’re gonna appreciate the moral of the story as you read it to your kids. You’re gonna feel like you did the first time you read a Dr. Seuss book.

If you’re in the market for a children’s book — and if you care about the message as well as the story — you’ve got to give this book a try. Do I even need to mention it’s available through Lulu, the font of all good things published? It’s called Lucy More Needs Less. Here’s a preview.