The Christmas Season is Just Starting -- and here's some books to make it really fun!

Holiday Reading to Carry You Through the Season
By Mary C. Gildersleeve


So, is Christmas over? If you look at the stores with their deeply discounted wares, you’d think so. The street decorations and lawn ornaments have vanished. Dying, tinsel laden trees sit on curbs. But, is Christmas really over?

According to the Catholic Church – not yet! The Christmas season is Christmas Eve till the Presentation (February 2) and we take full advantage of this. Here are some great books to continue your family’s Christmas celebrations.

The Thirteen Days of Christmas by Jenny Overton is a book that most libraries carry. It weaves the song throughout its pages – explaining that a suitor brings these gifts to woo a young woman each day during the 12 days between Christmas and Little Christmas. The gifts are encouraged by the girl’s family who don’t want the suitor to know “she can’t cook” and they're trying to prove to their sister that Francis is a romantic. This is a charming, old-fashioned chapter book – with lots of details of traditional “merrie olde England” Christmas traditions.

Epiphany, or “Little Christmas”, is celebrated on the second Sunday after Christmas or on the original day, January 6. This is the day the Three Wise Men find Jesus in the stable. Tomie de Paola’s The Legend of Old Befana and the Caldecott-award winning Baboushka and the Three Kings by Ruth Robbins are both picture books detailing Baboushka’s (or Befana’s) mistake of not going with the Kings to find Jesus and her eternal regret.

Though we don’t get much snow here in the Palmetto State, it’s always fun to dream for snow during January. Snowflake Bentley is an award-winning, fascinating book by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, gorgeously illustrated by Mary Azarian’s woodcuts. This picture book tells the story of Wilson Bentley who spent his life photographing snowflakes and sharing these photographs with his fellow Vermont folks. My Brother Loved Snowflakes: The Story of Wilson A. Bentley, the Snowflake Man by Mary Bahr Fritts is another re-telling of the life of this 19th-century farm boy who taught himself how to photograph the elusive snowflakes.

To finish up the cold, January days, you can’t go wrong with any of Jan Brett’s beautifully illustrated books. The Mitten tells the story of a little boy who wants his grandma to knit mittens “as white as the snow” and the hilarious adventures of the lost mittens. Another similar story is Ms. Brett’s The Hat, where a little girl’s winter hat becomes a problem for a nosey hedgehog. All of Ms. Brett’s books are great read-alouds – but have the kids in your lap so they can pore over the amazing illustrations. Ms. Brett uses every inch of space – words and pictures – to tell her stories and to surprise the watchful reader.

Enjoy the final month of the Christmas season with some wonderful read-alouds for your whole family – don’t forget the hot chocolate, the lit Christmas tree and the cozy blankets!

Christmas Reads for the Older Folks

I have always enjoyed "cozy" mysteries -- the kind Dorothy Sayers or Agatha Christie popularized. Anne Perry, who writes two different Victorian era mystery series and has also written a few books about WW1, has a Christmas gift just for folks like me --

Each year since 2003, Ms. Perry has written a novella using one of her secondary characters as the protagonist in the midst of a mystery. The first, A Christmas Journey,uses her character, Lady Vespasia Cummings-Gould, as the detective in trying to determine why a young widow on the brink of remarrying would commit suicide. The second, A Christmas Visitor , uses the character of Henry Rathbone to determine who would kill a respected judge - or was it just an accident? The third in Perry's canon -- and this year's book -- , A Christmas Guest, uses the cranky old Grandmama (Charlotte Pitt's grandmother) to solve a murder that only she knows has been committed!

All three of these books are delightful "cozies". They're short, novella length stories and the mysteries are well-crafted by this expert author of numerous British mysteries.

Each of these is just what a busy mom with Christmas "chores" to do can use to relax at the end of a LONG day! Think of it as "a-reading-theraphy" instead of "aromatherapy".

Narnia -- review of the movie

Before getting too far into this review, you have to understand that me and mine are big fans of the CSLewis series and the BBC version thereof -- ok, Lucy may be goofy looking, the acting is not the best, and the "effects" aren't that special. But as for staying faithful to Lewis' books, the BBC series is really pretty darn good. my only gripe is that they didn't do all the books in the series.

Now, on to the one that came out last week -

I was all set to be enthralled -- we'd done the study guide on The Narnia Academy site; we read the book as a read-aloud; we watched (and rewatched and rewatched) the BBC version; and we played on the Disney Narnia site. We were prepped and ready this morning -- only to find an ice storm had come through and lcosed the schools. We had already bought our tickets online and went to the theater anyway. We were the first ones there and by the time the movie had started there were only about half a dozen others, so we got the BEST seats.

On to my review:

First, I hated the opening -- why they had to show Nazis bombing the heck out of London and scare all of us with the Pevensies having to hide in a bomb shelter is beyond me. Lewis starts his book with the train station and that should have been good enough for the directors.....

Second, they don't have the Professor meet the children when they first come to the house (which looks like an ancient ancestral home rather than a rambling manor house in the country -- but let's not quibble). They only meet Mrs. MacCready -- who is just as cranky and mean as the book. The Professor, once they do meet him is ok -- but give me the one on the BBC version -- now he was a classic!

Third, all the children get into the wardrobe not in a moment of light-hearted/serious hiding from MacCready but to hide after having broken a window with a cricket ball. They've portrayed Susan and Peter as being teens -- hiding in a wardrobe like little children????? Like MacCready's gonna stand for that!

Overall, the movie had a tension, aciton, adversarial feeling that the book didn't -- for instance, the White Witch's wolves almost get the children at the Beaver's Lodge and nearly catch them a couple of times -- much more action and scariness than needed. The children are always squabbling and fussing. Peter's only motivation for staying in Narnia is to get Edmund back - he could care less about the prophecy or helping the innocent Narnians against the Witch.

A small quibble is that Peter never says "sorry" to Edmund when Edmund is brought back into the fold -- in the book, all accept responsibility for hurting each other and all make amends; but not in this adaptation!

If you want a movie that stays close to the dialogue, meaning and spirit of Lewis' classic, rent or buy the old BBC version; if you want special effects, great scenery, and lots of violence and action, go see Disney's version.

Better yet, skip the movies and read the books to your kids -- you can be as scary, silly or active as you'd like!

An Opera Kids will Enjoy!

Here's a great read-aloud for Christmas that is also a cultural experience! Amahl and the Night Visitors is an Italian opera composed by Gian-Carlo Mennotti in 1951 for NBC-TV. The book we read is a narrative by Frances Frost which "preserves the exact dialogue of the opera".

My kids loved this book -- it took only three lunchtimes to read but the pictures and the text kept them enraptured the entire time. There are silly parts -- King Kaspar is hilarious -- and sad parts, light parts and deep parts -- but the whole is a wonderful masterpiece. The ending is particularly dramatic and wonderful.

This is a great way to introduce the kids to opera -- check your local library for a copy of the book and the video....your kids will clamor for more.

Now, this is a silly read-aloud for the older kids

Thanks to a mention on Leonie's blog , I sought and obtained a rather silly book written in the late 1890's in England. Written by Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat -- (to say nothing of the dog) is a hilarious classic about boating on the Thames with three middle-income clerks. The sequel, written 10 years later, is titled, Three Men on the Bummel. This one takes the same three men on a cycling tour of Germany.

This is the kind of book that you read a bit of -- then need to read the same bit to your husband or kids -- then back to reading to yourself because you wouldn't want to let them hear all of it.....

This pre-dates P.G. Wodehouse by about 5 years (Wodehouse wrote his first novel around 1905) or so and yet it may just be where Wodehouse got his style. When Jerome K. Jerome wrote these books, they were severely panned by the literary establishment -- but the common folk loved them and they truly became "instant classics".

A Great Christmas Author Discovered

We have discovered a wonderful author -- unfortunately OOP -- who makes for a great chapter read-aloud for kids. Her name is Alta Halverson Seymour and she has written various Christmas books from around the world.

We've read:
1. Arne and the Christmas Star -- set in a Norwegian fishing village
2. The Christmas Stove -- set in a Swiss village

She also has other books we'll be keeping a watch for:
Kaatje and the Christmas Compass set in Holland, A Grandma for Christmas set in Norway, The Top o' Christmas Morning set in Ireland, Erik's Christmas Camera set in Sweden, and The Christmas Donkey set in Southern France.

She writes lovely stories with lots of details about how Christmas is celebrated in these different lands. Well worth the search for these!

Read-Alouds for Advent and Christmas

When You Just Can’t Wait
Some great reads-alouds for Advent
By Mary C. Gildersleeve
published in The Catholic Miscellany (December 15, 2005)


Advent – the season of waiting for the coming of the Christ-Child and all the blessings Christmas brings. As you fill your house with the lights and the smells and the goodies and the gifts, don’t forget to take some time to read out loud to your family.

A classic and very timely read-aloud is of course Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. This is the classic story of the character redeemed through blessings bestowed. Growing up, my mother read this book to us as we finished our dinner, with the advent candles flickering and the story unfolding a bit more each night. I can still see the small, hard-bound copy, bought with Mom’s own money when she was in high school, and read every year since.

What could be a more appropriate read-aloud than the story of a place where it is always winter and never Christmas? C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe tells the story of how Christmas finally comes to Narnia. A Disney movie version is sure to be the talk of the season, with a release date of December 9th, but nothing can compare to the rhythm of Lewis’ words and the beauty of his descriptions. You’ll add to the sounds of the season in your own house: squeals of laughter when the children meet the Beavers, or the quick intake of breath when the White Witch slithers up on her sled, or the spontaneous outburst of cheers that result when Edmund finally redeems himself – all to be heard as the fire crackles in the fireplace.

Lesser known Christmas read-alouds abound. One that can help you prepare the way for the Christ Child is, The Jesse Tree, by Geraldine McCaughrean (Eerdmanns Books 2003). A lovely story of a cranky wood-carver, carving a new Jesse Tree for a Church, and the little boy who wants to know all about the tree. A Jesse Tree takes 24 Bible stories to create Jesus’ own family tree. This year we’ll be making our own Jesse Tree ornaments and hanging them on a bare tree as we read the appropriate chapter from this book each night.

A Christmas season wouldn’t seem right without a story about a Christmas miracle. A beautifully written and illustrated book which will delight the family is The Miracle of Saint Nicholas, written by Gloria Whelan and illustrated by Judith Brown. This is the story of a Russian Orthodox Church in a small village that has been closed for over 60 years; years when the Communist would arrest anyone for going into the Church, years when the village almost forgot about how to celebrate Christmas. This is a lovingly written story of how a little boy changes all of that with his determination and his faith in making things right.

So put away the wrapping, the shopping, and the baking for an hour or so and read together as a family.

Read Alouds for Thanksgiving

Couch Potato Time…but this time to read!
By Mary C. Gildersleeve
(published in the The Catholic Miscellany, November4, 2005)


The jury is in – family read-alouds help encourage literacy, increase imagination and build a nation of readers. But the best reason to read-aloud as a family every day: to create memories that last a lifetime, the memories of sitting cozy on the couch, sharing this together time, discussing the story, making a recipe from the book, and just enjoying each other.

Every month, I will suggest great read-alouds that my family has enjoyed – read-alouds that make you laugh, cry, cheer or boo. They will be religious or secular, picture books or chapter books – but all will be enjoyable. The pleasantest times with my own family occur when reading aloud good books.

November kicks off with the feast of All Saints and what better way to cherish this Catholic feast than with Ethel Pochocki’s stories of saints compiled in two books: Once Upon a Time Saints and More Once Upon a Time Saints. Each book contains 16 saint stories – stories about poor people and rich people, free people and enslaved people, people whom you might know and those of whom you have never heard. But all these people have one thing in common: they gave it all up for God. Read a story each night (they are only about a 10 minute read) during the month and embrace our Catholic heritage. Published by Bethlehem Books, $9.95.

Another beautiful saint book is Sister Wendy’s Book of Saints. Sister Wendy Becket, famous for her PBS series on painting, gives a nice overview of some 35 saints, one on each two-page spread. Famous (and some not so famous) depictions of the saints illustrate Sr. Wendy’s text, laden with her notorious wit. She carries through the book a delight in showing the saints as they really were – humans who ultimately chose God over evil. Published by Dorling Kindersley, $19.95.

As November winds down, one particular family favorite is Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin. The Devlin’s weave a story about the problem with making assumptions and apologizing when necessary. The tale revolves around a secret cranberry bread recipe which is included at the end of the story. The smell of freshly-baked cranberry bread makes for a wonderful family tradition at this time of year. Published by Aladdin Books, $5.99.

Cynthia Rylant, born and raised in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, has written a couple of pictures books to remind us that one of the most important things in life is family. Her When I Was Young in the Mountains is a beautiful, not overly sentimental, look at growing up in the mountains, surrounded by family. Rylant paints word pictures of a memory that will touch all readers. Another book by Rylant, Appalachia: the Voices of Sleeping Birds, brings the daily Appalachian experience alive to all listeners. Published by Puffin Books, $6.99 each.

So turn off the TVs, gather the family, and become a couch potato of a different sort – read!