The Seed


	Title	The Seed
	Author	Barbara A. Verry Illustrations by Mary E. Burbridge
	Age Focus	4 to 6 year-olds or anyone interested in a parable about love
	Type -- Length	Book -- 1,082 words
	Keywords & Market Focus	Children's fiction, Educational Picture book, Spiritual Picture book, Easy reading
	Author Bio	Born in Teaneck, NJ in 1957, Barbara Verry is a disabled woman living in Ocean County, New Jersey, with her sister and brother-in-law. In college, she majored in Theology and graduated Cum Laude from St. Mary’s College, Orchard Lake, MI. She is a Consecrated Virgin Living in the World, a Professed Secular Augustinian Recollect, and is active in Prayer Shawl Ministry. Miss Verry is owned by three cats and an ever-changing number of tropical fish. In addition, she helps to care for her family’s three dogs and, on occasion, three more dogs, three more cats, three tanks of marine fish, another tropical tank, four chinchillas, and assorted reptiles.
	Synopsis	A lonely and depressed seed finds itself lying in a drawer without any others of its kind. The poor seed questions its own existence while other seeds question its very identity. Gardeners open the drawer and spy the little seed, wondering what it is. Because it is with all the other flower seeds, they decide that it too must be a flower. As it listens to the gardeners’ voices, the little seed decides, They must know what they are talking about… I still want to die, but maybe, just maybe there is hope for me. When all the seeds are taken and planted in a garden, the lonely seed makes the conscious decision to grow and blossom. The gardeners come to the garden a single time and admire its beauty. Because of their words, the little seed grows, trying to express the love in its innermost being but not knowing how. However, the other plants thwart its quest for self-assurance and love repeatedly until finally there is only silence and the rain grows cold. The death of the lovely plant leaves the gardeners wondering why.
	Other Information	Barbara Verry has had two poems and an article published in local periodicals and currently has several larger works in progress. Two of these are fiction and two are non-fiction.