Thursday, December 15, 2011

Christmas Books for Kids

A Christmas season tradition at the Archer home is reading Christmas children’s books. Each year I go through my row of books from my teaching days and pull out all the Christmas books. The stack sits on the couch all season and we read at least one each day. We also like to check some out from the local library, even though we have a large pile.

Here are several books that are our favorites for this year. Some are my son’s favorites and some are my books of choice.

My son 's favorite part of this book is the last page which is the music to the song. He places the book at the piano and proceeds to grace us with a unique rendition of Jingle Bells.



This is a cute pop-up book full of bugs. The singsong story is to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas. Day 12 is a stunning 3-D display of Angel bugs.


This story is about a family who decorates a tree in the forest each year with edible ornaments for the animals. Every year when we read this story I remember that I think it's a really neat idea and I remind myself that I would like to do this someday.


Jan Brett is an extremely gifted illustrator. If you've never read one of her books, you simply must. The detail will astound you. Her style of illustrating gives this classic poem new life.


This is one of my favorites. I've met the author and she has written in our book a message for my son. Michelle Medlock Adams tells the story of Christ's birth from the perspective of the dove and other animals. The rhyming lilt makes the book endearing.

I like to read this book on Christmas Eve before bed. The words are the lyrics to Silent Night and the accompanying pictures are Thomas Kinkade paintings.



And finally, our reading would not be complete without a trip to the North Pole. This book was awarded the prestigious Caldecott Award and once you've read it you'll see it is deserving. My son likes the version of this book that has pictures from the motion picture by the same name. To me, nothing beats the original.

What do you and your children read together this time of year? Do you have a favorite Christmas story from your childhood?


Merry Christmas reading--

J Renee

1 comment:

  1. Renee, I just answered your comment on the MGCC blog.... but I wanted to say any time you have gluten-free questions I would be happy to try to answer them for you ... If we all help each other it is so much easier, isn't it !
    my e-mail is juliefrompearls@gmail.con

    ReplyDelete