Saturday, December 11, 2010

Christmas Books

We checked out several really good Christmas books from our library last week. 

M’s favorite of the week has been Gingerbread Mouse, by Katy Bratun. image It’s a pretty simple story about a little mouse living in a gingerbread house until Santa comes along with a beautiful new (and unlikely to be eaten) house for her to live in.  The illustrations are wonderful.  We even made a gingerbread house this week, which fit in perfectly with the story.gingerbread house (3)
M also has really enjoyed Elliot’s Christmas Surprise, by Andrea Beck. image The story does a good job of reminding us to be thankful for what we have, especially our friendships.  It also does a great job of showing the fun that can be had with a large empty box. ;)

The Bear’s Christmas, by Jan and Stan Berenstainimageis hilarious (if you are a 4 year old boy).  Poor Papa Bear tries to relive his youth with Brother Bear’s Christmas gifts.  He gets rolled into a huge snowball, and this is, apparently, the absolute funniest part. :)

We also checked out The Night Before Christmas, by Clement C. Moore.image   This is the famous poem many know, but in our version the illustrations are done by Bruce Whatley (his name is familiar to me – any ideas what else he’s illustrated?), and they are amazing. Normally I like classic picture books to have the original illustrations, but this is definitely an exception.  Whatley knows how to bring the story to life, and this may be my favorite version ever.

There was one book that was so sweet (but not too sugary, if you know what I mean), it touched all of us – The Donkey’s Christmas Song, by Nancy Tafuri.imageI normally love all of Tafuri’s books, but she outdid herself with this one.  It is a very simple and beautiful story about the baby Jesus and the songs of the animals in the stable.  I don’t want to give too much of the story away; I’m hoping you’ll be able to find this one yourself and read it with your children.  I think even babies, as well as older children, will enjoy this one, the text is simple and short, and the illustrations are perfect.  I may have to put this one on our list to buy.

For more reviews of children’s books, check out Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns and Feed Me Books Friday.

Have a beautiful day! :)

 

5 comments:

  1. The Donkey's Christmas song sounds great - I think we already have Gingerbread Mouse on hold - and we always find Papa Bear funny, poor thing :)

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  2. I love your Christmas book choices! We love the Berenstain Bears. The donkey one I just put on hold at our library. Sounds like that one will be a real treat. And I love how you read the gingerbread book and made a wonderful little gingerbread house. OK one more comment, I'm also looking forward to getting the Elliot Moose books too. Those are new to me! Thanks for sharing.

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  3. You have a beautiful selection of Christmas books, and we haven't read any of them :) Thanks for joining WMCIR and sharing your choices.

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  4. Thanks for the suggestions the Nancy Tafuri,The Donkey's Christmas, sounds great. It sounds like one my baby boy could enjoy with us!

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  5. These look like good books to check out.

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