Christmas Book Suggestions, part 3

This is the last in a series of posts recommending books I love for reading and sharing at Christmas. Have a joyous holiday.

Ann Dunbar, Joyce. This is the Star. Harcourt Children’s Books, 1996. ISBN: 0152008519. The text builds on itself in a way similar to "The House that Jack Built," with the repetition making it a wonderful way to tell the story to young children. (The text is considerably more sophisticated than "The House that Jack Built," but it is the building-on-itself nature of the text that makes it so effective.) The pictures are beautiful.

Paterson, Katherine. Angels and Other Strangers: Family Christmas Stories. HarperCollins, 2006. ISBN: 0060783761. Paterson has written nine stories that can easily be read by upper elementary children, but that also lend themselves to reading aloud. Although several of the stories do not reflect the happiness that we traditionally think of in imagining Christmas, her stories are full of real people and real hope that is grounded in the reality of God’s presence in our world. I have used these stories in elementary church school classrooms, and my own family read them every Christmas as a part of our Advent ritual on Sunday evenings. (I've known several ministers who have used these stories at Christmas Eve services.) Another good collection of similar stories is Paterson’s A Midnight Clear and Cynthia Rylant’s Children of Christmas.

Visions of Christmas: A Renaissance Nativity. Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing, 1997. ISBN: 0689813597. Pairing the words of the Christmas story from the King James version of the Bible with full color reproductions from Renaissance painters (many done as triptychs) makes for a beautiful marriage of text and picture. Although the publisher says this is for ages 9 – 12, I think it works best as a book to share. Although it is out of print, it is still possible to find some used copies.