Abigail Series set

Endorsement written for Abigail and the Big Start Over

Starting over is hard! But it’s a lesson nine-year-old Abigail is learning as she begins fourth grade at her new school. She’s also going to learn about grace—the kind we extend to others and the grace God offers his children. Fun, relatable, grounded in Scripture, and full of bold illustrations, Abigail and the Big Start Over by Bethany McIlrath is a story kids will love.

“In the Abigail books, Bethany McIlrath demonstrates how a family’s commitment to their shared faith can help a nine-year-old girl navigate the everyday problems that children face. Each book not only tells a clever, funny story about Abigail but also successfully unpacks the biblical truths that Abigail discovers along the way.”

Bethany has created a delightful series that helps young readers connect their faith with their everyday life. Abigail’s adventures are fun and relatable, delivering valuable lessons for all kids and making this series a great one to add to your bookshelf.

Abigail is back, and that will make young readers and their families very happy! That’s because Bethany McIlrath’s entire series also makes kids feel as if they are part of Abigail’s story. Plus, these fun, cheerful, and meaningful books help kids become more deeply aware of the grander story God is writing in their own lives.

While plenty of books for kids this age have ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys,’ Bethany McIlrath has crafted real-world characters in real-life settings who exhibit both vice and virtue and desperately need God’s grace for a fresh start. Honestly, that was my favorite trait of this book—how all the characters demonstrate their need for grace, from Abigail to her new friend Flora, to their irritating classmate Greg, to Abigail’s mom. This engaging book will help kids honor others, seek to understand others, extend grace to others, and grow in grace themselves.

Delightful. Relatable. Entertaining. Accessible. True. Meeting Abigail in these pages felt like discovering a friend for the fifth-grade ‘new girl’ inside of me, who was desperately lonely and felt like she was blowing it at every turn. I am so eager to introduce Abigail and the Big Start Over to all of my elementary-aged friends so that they too can adventure with her, identify with her, and discover the incredibly beautiful and immensely applicable power of the gospel in their own very real lives, right alongside her. These stories about Abigail will doubtless impact the stories of their readers in a powerful way.

Bethany McIlrath has written a fabulous book that somehow entertains while it teaches truth!