Favorite Winter Holiday Children's Books (Re-Post; Includes Illustrations)

My three boys have proclaimed themselves too old for piling onto the sofa for read-aloud stories, but their bibliophilic mother has once again dragged out the overstuffed box of children's winter books in hope of December read-a-thons. I admit to a special fondness for the books in this particular box and have consulted the boys as to their own favorites.

Folk tradition

Our unanimous favorites have to do with trolls and tomtar. Jan Brett's colorful and lushly illustrated Trouble With Trolls and Christmas Trolls have Scandinavian-derived themes of naughty trolls trying to take what doesn't belong to them. Treva, the protagonist in both stories, must outwit the trolls to get back her dog (in TWT) or the family Christmas gifts (CT). In the latter, she works with the trolls to teach them about the Christmas spirit and the joy of giving. There are secondary story lines going on at the sides and bottom of the pages.

Alf Proysen's and Jens Ahlbom's Christmas Eve at Santa's is a story translated from Swedish. Santa Claus (a Christmas tomte in the Swedish version) is walking up the driveway with his gifts, and carpenter Anderson, dressed as Santa, falls over onto his sled and heads out-of-control down the driveway.They collide midway. Santa persuades Anderson to trade places for the evening. Anderson gets to make gifts for Santa's family, and Santa gets to spend time with the Anderson family, who strangely refuse to believe he is really Santa. We love the warm and cozy illustrations.

Another favorite version of Moore's poem we've enjoyed is Cajun Night Before Christmas by Trosclair, edited by Howard Jacobs and illustrated by James Rice, from Pelican Publishing Co., 1983. Santa travels the bayou in a skiff powered by alligators with French names, and yes, they even crawl up on the roof. The story is told in dialect and has a lot of humor. Our favorite lines are those Santa says as he falls down the chimney and lands on the yams and hot coals.

Christmas

The Christmas Star by Marcus Pfister explains the Christmas story to the very youngest, as does Santa's Favorite Story by Hisako Aoka and Ivan Ganske. Both are delicately illustrated with soft watercolors. Pfister adds glittery stars to his tale, and Aoki and Gantschev cleverly combine the story with the Santa legend, though the story Santa tells is rather short. The majestic words of the King James Bible are used in Jane Ray's gorgeously illustrated The Story of Christmas and The Metropolitan Museum of Art's The Christmas Story. The latter isillustrated with beautiful masterpieces from the museum's collection and will appeal more to older children and adults. Joy to the World: Christmas Stories From Around the World tells five stories from four continents, chosen well from early Christian folklore by Saviour Pirotta of Malta and brightly illustrated by Sheila Moxley.

Hanukkah

We've enjoyed learning about Hanukkah from two titles: Herschel and the Hanukkah Goblins by Eric Kimmel, illustrated by Trina Schart Human, and Latkes and Applesauce by Fran Manushkin, illustrated by Robin Spowart. In the first, Herschel determines to outwit the goblins who have been haunting the synagogue and preventing the villagers from celebrating Hanukkah. For seven nights he tricks and confuses the progressively large goblins so that they leave the synagogue, and on the seventh, he must face and outwit the devil himself. In Latkes and Applesauce, a family housebound by a blizzard finds they can't dig up potatoes to make the traditional Hanukkah dish of latkes (potato pancakes). When they emerge starving after eight days, the dog and cat they have sheltered from the storm help them harvest the potatoes and apples from the frozen ground and trees. Both titles have back pages to explain the original Hanukkah story.

Kwanzaa

The African-American celebration of Kwanzaa is based on an ancient African harvest festival. We learned about it from Seven Candles for Kwanzaa by Andrea Davis Pinckney, illustrated by Brian Pinckney. Warm family scenes illustrate each of the daily Kwanzaa principles of unity,self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith. Two of the scenes portrayed morph into related African scenes, and African motifs border the pages.

Winter solstice

For our winter season favorites, we enjoyed Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton, Louhi: Witch of North Farm, a tale from the Finnish Kalevala retold by Toni de Gerez and illustrated by Barbara Cooney, Bob the Snowman by Sylvia Loretan, Little Penguin's Tale by Audrey Wood, and Winter Poems, selected by Barbara Rogasky and illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. Older ones will enjoy Snowflake Bentley, a pictorial biography of the farmer who first photographed snowflakes, by Jacqueline Martin, and illustrated by the incomparable woodcut artist Mary Azarian.

Most if not all of these books are available at local libraries and new or used bookstores.

Perhaps with the bribery of some hot chocolate and goodies, I'll be able to get the boys back onto the sofa one of these days.....

What are your favorite winter holiday books? Let us know if you celebrate a different tradition....

(c. The Port Townsend Leader, December 21, 2005)