Meet Lily, Who Has Many Lessons To Learn

“Being grateful has changed my life,” says Rebecca Perlman Coniglio, the author of a series of children’s books titled Lily’s Life Lessons. Indeed, the former Livingston resident who still has a thriving counseling business here and was once the guidance counselor at Harrison and Burnett Hill Elementary schools, sees gratitude as an essential part of her family’s life.

“It’s everything,” she says. “If you can’t feel lucky, you let life’s little things bother you. Feeling grateful for what you have can get you to stop the negative thoughts you have. It helps you appreciate all of the wonderful things in your life.” 

It’s that lesson, and others, she hopes to impart in her books, which are based on the experiences of her 4-year-old daughter, Lily. 

How the books came to be written, was an unexpected surprise – to the author. “I’d never written anything in my life; not a poem or even a story.” Then one night when she couldn’t sleep she just wrote the stories. 

“I’ve always loved how close Lily is to her grandmother, who she calls Nama.  I thought how lucky they were to have this close relationship and how lucky I was that they have this relationship.”  The books are written in rhymes because Lily loves rhymes and are populated with people in the child’s life including Rebecca, her husband Brian, Nama (aka Laurel Perlman of Livingston), and Papa (aka Dr. Donald Perlman of Florham Park). 

In fact, the illustrations by Jen Mundy actually look like the real people. “I’ve never met Jen Mundy, but I sent her pictures of the family and she did a great job,” said Rebecca.  She is especially proud of the fact that the character Lily considers herself lucky not because of what she looks like but because of the people in her life, something the real Lily expresses all the time. 

Rebecca, who also worked on child study teams in Millburn and Short Hills and currently lives in New Providence, chose Mascot Books to publish her stories. She discovered the company after leafing through a kid’s book her husband had gotten about his alma mater, the University of Maryland. She’s grateful that Mascot, a firm which helps authors self-publish books, has done a stellar job of promoting her Lily books; you can find them listed on Amazon.com as well as in Barnes & Noble stores. She’s also thankful for the photograph of her in the book, which was taken by Livingston’s Jan Press PhotoMedia. 

As for the fictional Lily, will she grow up in the series? 

Rebecca laughs, “I don’t know! I would love to follow her as she grows up.”  But for now, in addition to the original Lily book, which contains two stories titled “Lucky Lily” and “Lily’s Lucky Daddy,” there is another book in the series available. 

It also contains two stories:  “The Luckiest Little Girl,” and “Lily’s Lesson” which deals with the subject of divorce. In that story, Lily learns why Nama and Papa don’t live in the same house.  It gives parents guidance as to how to address the delicate subject of divorce. And the author sees Lily tacking other issues in the future including being an only child, , starting preschool, telling the truth, and how to.

So how can parents cultivate a sense of gratitude in their children? The author suggests that children maintain eye contact when speaking with someone to show that they’re paying attention.  She also encourages them to say “please” and “thank you.”  Plus parents and caregivers can model gratitude by showing that “when you have a bad day, what it all comes down to is appreciating what you have.”

For this busy mother/counselor and now, author, the real measure of success comes when her daughter looks up at her with large, brown eyes and says, “Mommy I’m so proud of you.”  Rebecca says softly, “I do it all for Lily.”

Rebecca Perlman Coniglio will be doing a book reading at the in the Livingston Mall at 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 17 and will speak with parents about the series  at in Livingston on Oct. 13 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.