More Christmas books for Kids!

Four years ago I wrote a post about some of our favorite children's Christmas books. Four years ago.  How can that be?!

We still love all those books and every single one of them has been read at least once this December, some many times.  Some that were library books have since made their way into our permanent collection. This year I thought I'd make a new post with ten more wintry books we've picked up and enjoyed along the way.

Our Christmas books come out of hiding the day after Thanksgiving. Here is our dear friend Ryann braving sick kids to read to the girls when she was home on a visit. 

We picked up The Christmas Whale, from 1945, at a thrift store and we adore it. I see now as I look it up online that it's actually worth a little bit of money. Ours is a battered ex-library copy, but we absolutely love its delightful story and pictures.

When the reindeer get sick, all the northern animals want to help Santa, but they all have reasons they're unable. So together they call on their friend, the Kindly Whale, load her up with the goodies, and Christmas is saved!

I just picked this tiny board book up at the local bookstore. It's just a quick little introduction to Sibylle von Offers' magical snow children world, and I don't usually buy my girls board books anymore, but this one was so cute that I had to have it for our winter book collection to tide us over until we get the full Snow Children story.

Plus it paired nicely with this miniature Elsa Beskow book Nana just brought us. Ollie's Ski Trip is a story first published in Sweden in 1907 that tells the tale of Ollie visiting King Winter,  along with his jolly friend Jack Frost, pulled on a sleigh by four strong polar bears. So the Snow Children is like the girl version; it has little Poppy playing with the dancing snow children and visiting the Snow Queen and return home with a snowman on a sleigh, also pulled by four strong polar bears!

We love Russell and Lillian Hoban's proletarian, slightly melancholy, enchanting animal world. We have Emmett Otter's Jug-band Christmas too, and this year we also have the dvd of the Jim Henson production! 

But the Mole Family's Christmas might be even sweeter. The family is humble and simple, but they have an enterprising and curious streak just like so many Hoban characters, and once they find out about Christmas, they're determined to surprise each other. 

And with a homemade telescope and observatory, they do a wonderful job of it.

We've had A Pussycat's Christmas in our collection for a long time, but for some reason I only recently just read it to the girls for the first time. It's by Margaret Wise Brown, whose writing always has the strangest lilting rhythms, and it's illustrated by one of our very favorite cat artists, Anne Mortimer. 

Pussycat loves to be out in the snow!

Anne Mortimer perfectly captures a cat's playful inquisitiveness, intense curiosity, and serious contentment.

We checked out Eloise at Christmastime again this year and it's so good. 

She's certainly a wild one, with all her breathless ideas and enthusiasm, and her pets Skipperdee and Weenie are our favorites. 

The pinks, reds, and whites of her fairytale Christmas dreamworld appeal to the sparkling core of my six year old heart. 

And Eloise's relationship with sweet, patient Nanny brings stability, warmth, and love to her unconventional hotel life that, when reading aloud, seems to bring a kind of comfort and predictability to that wild imaginary world.

I saw this Richard Scarry book for sale at World Market this year and almost bought it. Luckily Darin and the girls reminded me that we already have it! Ours is a nice large paperback version from 1972. It's fun to pick this one up and turn to any short, festive story for a few minutes of fun. 

I want to live in a Richard Scarry book. 

This year I bought each of the girls a new Christmas book for our collection, hid them in October, and then promptly forgot about them. Luckily Darin found them around December 1, so we've had plenty of time to enjoy them!

The Little Reindeer is Lucy's, and it's a magical tale about a little girl waking up in the middle of the night and making friends with a flying reindeer.

Polly got the merry story, Pick a Pine Tree, all about the seasonal fun of bringing a tree indoors and decorating it.

I like to inscribe their special books, but this time Polly emphatically dictated what I'd write. She wouldn't let me write "For the star on our Christmas tree" or "to my sparkling sprout." I explained what a metaphor is, and finally she agreed to being called a bell. 

This beautiful book, The Black Sheep, from 1985, I found at the Bookery two years ago. Like many of my favorites, it's the nativity story from an animal's perspective. The black sheep is a brave wanderer and the watercolors have the feeling of that wondrous deep haunting of December.

And Polly just adores how the baby Jesus nestles into the black sheep's soft wool.

May your holiday stories bring you joy and peace. Let me know if your kids have any favorites we might not have seen.

Next up, I hope to make some best-of lists of holiday songs and albums!