Tuesday Storytime: Happy Holidays!

Yesterday was our last storytime of the year - amazing how quickly it all goes. It's ALSO the last storytime before Christmas, so I felt like I ought to do at least one specifically "christmassy" book.

The Snowy Day
Ezra Jack Keats
ISBN: 9780670012701  (50th anniversary edition)
This is a MUCH bigger edition than the original, which makes it much more suited for traditional storytime, instead of a lap-sit or child-held book. I love that the original was small and suited for tiny hands and arms, but it does make it more enjoyable for the pictures to be bigger this time around. There's a lovely section at the end talking about Keats and his work on this book and his dream of having "Peter" representing all the children who never got to see someone who looked like them.

Click, Clack, Ho Ho Ho
Doreen Cronin, illustrated by Betsy Lewin
ISBN: 9781442496736
This cute story follows Duck and all the other farm animals through an ill-fated attempt to bring Farmer Brown some Christmas Cheer, and unfortunately ending up all stuck in the chimney. Thankfully, the real Santa arrives to put things to rights (or at least shove everyone down the chimney into the living room) and the party gets to happen after all.

Bear Snores On
Karma Wilson, illustrated by Jane Chapman
ISBN: 06898780238
The classic story that started the whole thing. I like this one as a low-key holiday party book because there's no indication of them celebrating anything specific at all, just having a nice party with friends. With society as multi-cultural as it is now, it's really lovely to have a book that focuses on the important things: it's cold, it's dreary, and everyone needs an excuse to hang out with the people they love.

Tuesday Storytime: Only One More (Storytime) til Christmas!

With apologies to the Muppet Christmas Carol, there was only one more storytime til Christmas, so it's the final opportunity to showcase some really sweet Christmas stories. Every year at this time we have a lot of returning storytimers who have "graduated" into school attendance - they're all off on their winter breaks, and it's lovely to have a chance to see them all again in storytime. It also makes for a difficult balancing act between their older and more mature tastes and concentration levels, and the needs of the still very young infants and tiny toddlers who are just barely holding on for a full storytime as it is.

The Night Before Christmas
Clement C. Moore, illustrated by Kathy Wilburn (Little Golden Book)
ISBN: 03070475501
I used to read this book at Christmastime at my Grandmother's house, and I have very fond memories of the illustrations. The book itself is on the small side, but we all scrunched up close and managed anyway. The kids loved it, and I'm glad I put it first while attention and interest was strong enough to make it through.

Dream Snow
Eric Carle
ISBN: 0399235795
A humble farmer dreams of snow blanketing himself and his handful of farm animals (named One through Five) and his single farm tree (named Tree) and the kids have a blast guessing the identities of the farm animals based on their white-draped shapes before I pull away the transparency to reveal them one by one. The end of the book has the farmer in his suspiciously-red winter warm clothes tramping outside with a sack of toys and shiny things to decorate Tree for the Christmas season. A big hit because of the interaction.

Bear Stays Up For Christmas
Karma Wilson, illustrated by Jane Chapman
ISBN: 0689852789
I love these books so much. Bear is normally asleep at this time of year (hibernation, you know) but his friends are determined that he'll be awake for Christmas at least once. So they plan a full day and night of activities, and the sleepy Bear manages, until all the friends fall asleep themselves from exhaustion. A delighted tricksy Bear spends the night creating presents and decorating for them while they sleep, and they all enjoy a lovely Christmas morning together. So cute. 

Tuesday Storytime: Christmas

Holidays are always so interesting.  On the one hand, it makes things easier for selection, because there's your topic hanging RIGHT THERE.  On the other hand, it limits choices because now the selection criteria include topical limitations; at least Christmas books aren't as universally unfortunate as the Thanksgiving ones are.  On the third hand (running out of hands here) celebrating (or just acknowledging major religious/cultural holidays can be a bit fraught, because there are often not enough quality resources available to do a storytime about other cultural holidays - I feel like I should be more pro-active about finding those, but this is only one of several hats I wear.  On the fourth hand, getting back to celebrating holidays, especially with Christmas, I feel like there's a distinct possibility that caregivers are just the tiniest bit sick of it all, and would be thrilled to have something else to talk about with their toddlers for an hour or so.  On the fifth hand, I do have a whole lot of parents who are either temporarily in the states or are freshly immigrated, and so there is a whole cultural phenomenon they're actively trying to figure out.

I overthink things sometimes.  

Three lovely Christmas books.

Christmas in the Country

Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Diane Goode 

ISBN: 0439073340

Narrator remembers a long-ago Christmas with her grandparents.  Less country and more old-fashioned.

Likes: narrator lives with grandparents, Christmas is shown as secular (trees and Santa and presents) and religious (two different church services), and it deals with the END of Christmas and the associated rituals that make the post-event process go smoothly (taking out the tree, putting away ornaments, a special snack).

Dislikes: no PoC, slightly too long for my wiggle-worms today, and the illustrations aren't my favorites - very cartoony and loose.  

Christmas Wombat

Jackie French, illustrated by Bruce Whatley

ISBN: 9780547868721

Australians celebrate Christmas too, and so does this very greedy wombat.

Very few words here, and sequential illustrations.  I narrated a bit more than the actual text, and asked leading questions as the book progressed, and the caregivers got a kick out of the humor, and the kids were impressed at the sheer number of carrots eaten by this roly-poly furball.  Short and funny - a perfect fit.

A Short History of Christmas

Sally Lee, with Gail Saunders-Smith (consulting editor)

ISBN: 9781491460955

A bit scattershot, but very basic and clearly laid out description of Christmas themes and traditions.

This is my second Christmas reading this book (I discovered it a bit over a year ago and was delighted with it) and while I'm still very pleased with it, I will say that the ending is a BIT sharp.  I would have liked to see more time spent on modern traditions and approaches to Christmas (we only get a single spread before it turns abruptly to the glossary).  The only other quibble I have is that the language presents the existence of Mary and Joseph and the timing of Jesus' birth as historical facts, when it could very easily have been phrased to indicate that this is considered truth for Christians, and not necessarily by others with different belief systems. The scattershot approach isn't actually a negative for me, considering the attention spans of my little ones, and the one-topic-per-spread approach means that they constantly have something new and interesting to re-engage with.  (And engage they did - lots of audience participating on this book as they showed off all that they knew about Christmas and Saint Nicholas and traditions.     

Tuesday Storytime: Christmas

It's our last storytime before Christmas, and our last of 2015, so I picked a lovely trio to end us on.  We'll start up in January with lots of books about snow, and hope that Mother Nature gets the hint.

Snowmen at Christmas
Caralyn Buehner, illustrated by Mark Buehner
ISBN: 0803729952
Luminous but cheerful and lighthearted spread paintings of animated snowpeople all festive.

This is actually a sequel to Snowmen at Night, but I like this one better as a Christmas story.  That said, I do have, and might read Snowmen at Night in the next couple of months with all the snowy themes.  This one is nice for Christmas for several reasons:
1) rhyming text means I can get through a slightly more substantial story in much better time.
2) this is one of the least-Christmassy Christmas books out there (only one veiled religious reference)
3) snowman party.


A Short History of Christmas
Sally Lee (consulting editor: Gail Saunders-Smith)
ISBN: 9781491460955
Very primary-grade juvenile nonfiction explaining the historic basis for Christmas traditions.

Really loving this series, and very happy to see them on the shelves.  This one is just as factual as Thanksgiving, and very straightforward, starting with the December festival of Saturnalia, the birth of Jesus, choosing of December 25th by church leaders, Saint Nicholas into Santa Claus, the tradition of caroling, Queen Victoria's German Christmas tree, and modern traditions of charity.  Not bad for just under 250 words total.  I just really wish there were similar books for the less-recognized holidays of the season: Hanukkah, Eid, and Solstice.


Bear Stays Up for Christmas
Karma Wilson, Jane Chapman
ISBN: 0689852789
Bear and Friends series, Bear's friends help him stay awake for Christmas Eve and Morning.

I adore this Christmas book.  It's so sweet and perfect and has just about everything you'd want out of a Christmas book - including the difficulties that children have staying awake for the fun!  Bear is the perfect sleepy focus, and all his friends are genuinely helpful and caring.  This entire series is beautiful, but this one is perfect for Christmas in a way that is deeply satisfying.  I personally would have been fine without an appearance by Santa as well, but that's not a battle I feel motivated about - it's just a slight preference.

Picture Book: The Carpenter's Gift, David Rubel & Jim LaMarche

The Carpenter's Gift 
David Rubel, illustrated by Jim LaMarche
ISBN: 9780375869228
Read February 10, 2014

This is a fictionalized account of the first Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, and I truly wanted to like it, but it just felt like it was trying too hard the whole way through.  This is like the picture book equivalent of a Hallmark Holiday Special, complete with wispy, wistful pencil illustrations.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate it, it wasn't horrible, just - none of the moments impacted me like they were obviously meant to do.  I'm not even entirely sure why.  If I had to guess, I'd say that it reads like a Christmas commercial, like the touchy-feely Saint Jude commercials, or those godawful adopt-a-pet sobfests.  It just felt artificial and forced, and the point (look, the Rockefeller Tree isn't entirely a crass spectacle!  Look, we give wood to Habitat for Humanity!!  See?  Christmas spirit, man!) was entirely too belabored.

I did love that the Sparky at the end was a girl.  Nicely done.

I also, for the most part, liked the wispy, wistful illustrations.  I just wish the writer(s ?) would have trusted the artwork to carry the emotion instead of beating the reader over the head with meaning.

This book was recommended by The Read-Aloud Handbook.