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Lily Hates Goodbyes: All Military Edition

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Lily Hates Goodbyes is a book for young military kids coping with a parent's deployment. Two versions available! Navy Version (daddy wears Navy uniform) and All Military Version (daddy wears generic BDUs).

Lily is a young military child. Sometimes she has to say goodbye to her Daddy for about a billion days. She feels a swirl of unhappy emotions that can be scary. And she aches to feel connected to her Daddy while he's on deployment. Join Lily as she learns how to cope with her emotions and to be happy in her daily life while she looks forward to joyfully saying hello when Daddy gets home.

This 32-page, full-color storybook will be a welcome companion to your military kid. Young readers are comforted by Lily's experience and reassured to see Lily's happy reunion with her Daddy.

32 pages, Paperback

First published March 8, 2011

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About the author

Jerilyn Marler

3 books3 followers
Jerilyn Marler is the author of Lily Hates Goodbyes for young children coping with separation from a loved one, and Helping Your Young Child Cope with a Parent's Deployment, a handbook for adults helping milkids cope.

In 2010, her Navy officer son was on deployment and her 3-year-old granddaughter was distraught by his absence. Jerilyn wrote Lily Hates Goodbyes as a Word document with personal photos intended just for Lily. The book helped Lily talk about her feelings, develop healthy ways to cope with those feelings, and connect with her daddy despite the distance between them. The book helped Lily so much that Jerilyn hired Nathan Stoltenberg, a Seattle-based graphic artist and illustrator, and self-published it for all young children who suffer through long separations from a loved one. Lily Hates Goodbyes was first released in January 2011. A new release was published in August 2011 through Jerilyn’s new publishing company, Quincy Companion Books, an imprint of Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing. Daddy wears a Navy officer uniform in the original book. Many parents from other branches of the military asked for a branch-specific Lily book. That was beyond Jerilyn's capacity, but she rehired Nathan Stoltenberg to create a version of Daddy in a generic BDU, which has served well. It is by far the more popular version.

Her 40-year creative path wove through writing educational materials for Alaska elementary schools; writing three books about WordPerfect for an imprint of Henry Holt Publishers; editing dozens of books for technical publishers; editing a children’s book, a medical text book, and a book on divorce at the same time; and writing/editing end user documentation for more products than she can count. Jerilyn worked in major high technology companies and tiny start-ups; she’s been a real estate agent, programmer, project manager, program manager, and user interface designer. Her name is on two patents held by Intel Corporation, where she worked for nearly 15 years. The persistent thread through all of her work has been communication: it always comes back to words.

From sixth grade through her junior year of high school Jerilyn attended Kodaikanal International School, a boarding school in the mountains of southern India. Memories of her long, painful separations from her parents -- as well as being a military child, wife, and mother -- helped her relate to Lily’s experience 46 years later.

Jerilyn is happily retired now and lives with her husband Dan in Beaverton, a few miles from Portland, Oregon.

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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
Profile Image for Jeff Botch.
Author 1 book161 followers
December 20, 2012
Jerilyn Marler’s book, “Lily Hates Goodbyes,” is a wonderful story that takes you through the feelings and emotions of a young girl while her dad is away in the military.

According to Lily, her daddy’s job takes him away for about a “billion” days. While her dad is away, Lily experiences feelings of fear, anger, sadness and stubbornness. Lily has to fight through the feelings of not having her daddy around but she has the support of her mom who helps her through it.

My favorite part is when the author writes, “Lily and Mommy try not to be stubborn at the same time.”

Kids will learn from Marler’s book that they have the ability to get through long stretches of separation by utilizing basic coping skills, continuing to live their life and recognizing that they have people around them that are there to help in the process.

This is clearly a book to help children deal with the difficulty of separation and it serves a larger purpose than simply for military families. “Lily Hates Goodbyes” can be read multiple times because it serves as a way for children to relate to what they are going through. Lily is a child that is having similar feelings and it’s easier to adjust when kids see that they are not the only ones having these feelings.

I highly recommend “Lily Hates Goodbyes” for families that are dealing with separation.
Profile Image for Kathy.
2,741 reviews5,976 followers
June 4, 2017
My 6 year old daughter loves this book. We don't even have anyone in the military but for some reason she's asked for it to be read multiple times. The first time we read this book it made me teary eyed. We've had several friend deployed and it's hard to imagine what it is really like for kids to be without their dad around.

This would be a great book to give young children whose parent's get deployed while serving our country. There are several ideas for things that children can do while missing their parent.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews