Christmas in the Country

Pearl Buck’s Christmas Day in the Morning, first published in 1955, is a timeless treasure perfect for reading aloud. Reissued a decade ago with beautiful, wintry illustrations by Mark Buehner, this tender story features a man who lovingly recalls the time when, as a 15-year-old, he overheard his father telling his mother how he hated to awaken Rob so early to help with the farm chores. At that moment Rob begins to feel the enormity of his father’s love for him. How he yearns to do something to show his own love for his big-hearted dad.

Rob realizes the most meaningful gift of all would not involve purchasing an object. Rather, the boy decides he will slip out before anyone else — at 3 a.m. Christmas morning — to relieve his father of all the morning chores and let him enjoy just one morning of leisure. It would mean the farmer could at last witness his children’s expressions when they first see the Christmas tree and open their presents.
Perch yourself by the fire and read this touching story to older children. Be prepared for tears — and for sweet memories.

Another warm story set in a long-ago Christmas is poet Donald Hall’s recently published Christmas at Eagle Pond. The author circles back to the year 1940, when he experiences the treat of spending Christmas with his grandparents at their farm in New Hampshire. Hall lovingly recalls the sights, smells, and sounds of a life centered on family, community, and the land.

Twelve-year-old Donnie fondly falls in with his grandparents’ routines. He joins Gramp in the barn, as he milks the cows and relates stories of the past or recites poems to the boy. At night, Gram fills hot-water bottles for the beds. “I walked through their icy bedroom to mine, even icier, and stuffed my hot-water bottle under the sheets to warm my feet. Crawling beneath the covers I shivered a moment, but the quilts were thick, my feet almost too hot, and soon I fell asleep in my familiar goosefeather bed at the house I loved most in the world.”
Donnie’s week in New Hampshire involves other simple events, such as seeing the Christmas pageant at church, getting new socks, and feasting on the huge meal Gram prepares. As the boy prepares to return home, the air becomes “heavy with fine snowflakes, the kind that fall at the start of a big storm.” How, Donnie wonders, will he be able to return home to Connecticut?

This quiet, nostalgic novella holds no dramatic action (although vegetarians might want to skip Gramp’s selection of chickens for the meal). Instead, Christmas at Eagle Pond offers a comforting, slightly bittersweet respite from the clash and bang of modern life. Be sure to read the author’s note.

Another highly recommended novella with a rural setting for ages 8+ is:

and for ages 6 to 8, consider these picture books:

A Quiet, Lustrous Gift

Park, Linda Sue. The Third Gift. Illus. by Bagram Ibatoulline. Houghton Mifflin, 2011.

Quiet and lustrous, this spare story by the Newbery Award-winning author Linda Sue Park distinguishes itself from the jingly, jangly stuff that crowds most bookstores this time of year. Taking us back more than 2,000 years ago to a desert in the Arabian Peninsula, the author focuses on a son who accompanies his father as they go about their work, which will ultimately play a surprising role in a particular Biblical story.

Throughout The Third Gift, Mr. Ibatoulline (The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane) provides finely detailed acrylic-gouache paintings that focus on the white-robed pair. He first shows them resting beside a tough, gnarled tree with spiky-looking tufts of dull green sprouting here and there. The backdrop of bright desert light reflects motley shades of tan, gray, bisque, and alabaster. This harsh region is where the two go about collecting “tears” of myrrh.

We follow the boy and father as they trudge through the heat and dust, looking for the right trees to cut for the precious sap that provides their livelihood. Touchingly, the father saves the best for his son. “Look,” he says, putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder and pointing to the biggest tear. The double spread shows how the boy carefully twists off the sap, just as he has watched his father do. Then he holds it in his palm and sniffs “its sharp, bitter sweetness.”

In time, the two walk to the market, where the father knows the spice merchant will pay him good money for his harvest of tears. The myrrh will be used for medicine, flavoring, or, in the case of superior ones, as incense at funerals. On this day, three men in splendid robes are eager to buy one more gift to add to their already-purchased gold and frankincense. The strangers select the very best tear, the one the boy collected. Strangely enough, it turns out the men are intent upon presenting such gifts to a baby.

We last see the boy in a state of silent wonder, as the three men ride on their camels through the desert toward Bethlehem.

The Third Gift is an unusually thoughtful and bittersweet story that shines a light on ordinary people in a historic place and time. The author’s note provides details on myrrh, on her inspiration for this work, and on the Nativity story.

Reprinted with permission from the New York Journal of Books.

For other sensitive holiday picture books, see my post “A Time for Peace” and these fine new ones:

                                                                                                  
For laughs, try …

                              

A Time for Peace

McCutcheon, John Christmas in the Trenches. Illus. by Henri Sorensen. Peachtree, 2006.

If you’ve ever heard the song “Christmas in the Trenches” by folksinger John McCutcheon, you will remember it. It’s become part of my Christmas tradition after hearing it on a local college radio station in ’84. McCutcheon has adapted his touching song about the Christmas Truce of 1914 for this picture book and CD for older children. The story’s narrator is an elderly man named Francis, who tells his grandchildren of the unique Christmas he experienced as a young soldier in WWI.  The soldiers in the trenches were bored and homesick on Christmas Eve. Suddenly, they heard German voices singing Christmas carols. The English soldiers decided to join in on “Silent Night,” an act that inspired a German soldier to cross No Man’s Land with a white flag and a Christmas tree. The two sides called a temporary, informal truce. Sorensen’s atmospheric oil paintings highlight the unexpected night of peace with a double-page spread showing the soldiers and the battlefield. Included are an author’s note, music notation, and a CD with the title song and “Silent Night/Stille Nacht,” along with a reading of the story. This sensitive picture book won a 2007 Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People. For older children who want to learn more about the event, show them Jim Murphy’s Truce: The Day the Soldiers Stopped Fighting (Scholastic, 2009). Murphy gives an accessible overview of WWI and focuses on how peace was briefly restored when troops defied orders and met their enemies in the barren land between the trenches. Archival photographs, maps, and artwork help children understand the events.

More Beauties of the Season … and Share Your Favorites by Leaving a Comment!

Climo, Shirley. Cobweb Christmas: The Tradition of Tinsel. Illus. by Jane Manning. HarperCollins, 2001. Ages 6-9. Charming story of a kind old lady who gets to experience a little Christmas magic, thanks to some spiders. Manning’s bright illustrations provide interesting perspectives and a warm spirit.

Cunningham, Julia. The Stable Rat and Other Christmas Poems. Illus. by Anita Lobel. Greenwillow, 2001. Cunningham’s original poems explore the Nativity from the perspective of the animals that gathered there. Lobel’s lovely paintings capture the mystery of the season.

Daly, Niki. What’s Cooking, Jamala? Farrar, 2001. You can’t eat friends! That’s why Jamala decides to save her chicken from going into the pot for the Christmas meal. This delightful Yuletide tale features the same lively South African township characters that populate Daly’s previous Jamala stories.

dePaola, Tomie. The Legend of Old Befana. Voyager, 1989. Why do Italian families exchange gifts on January 6, Epiphany? You’ll know after reading this spirited story of a grandmotherly woman who must “sweep, sweep, sweep” and misses out on seeing the Christ child.

DiCamillo, Kate. Great Joy. Illus. by Bagram Ibatoulline.  Candlewick, 2007. “Where do they go at night?” Frances wonders. Every day she sees an organ grinder and his monkey perform across the street from her home. In the midst of her preparations for her role in her church’s Christmas pageant, Frances decides to stay up late one night so she can see where the man and his monkey go. That’s when she discovers they live on the street. Wanting to help, she invites him to come see the pageant. Anxious during the presentation, she has trouble getting out her lines … until she sees him enter the church. Then she cries out “I bring you tidings of Great Joy!” DiCamillo’s sensitive story, set in WWII, balances optimism and realism and is enlarged by Ibatoulline’s magnificent acrylic gouache paintings.

Medearis, Angela Shelf. Seven Spools of Thread: A Kwanzaa Story. Albert Whitman, 2004. Engaging, original tale of seven bickering brothers in Ghana. When their father dies, his will says they must spin seven spools of thread into gold in one day — with no arguing. When the brothers start to work together, they combine their different-colored spools of thread to create beautiful multicolored cloth, the first their village has seen. They sell the Kente cloth to the king for gold. Along the way, the story weaves in the seven principles of Kwanzaa. Minter’s linoleum block-print illustrations evoke the vitality of African village life.

Potter, Beatrix. The Tailor of Gloucester. Warne. “No more twist!” Meet the mice who save the day for a kind old tailor living in the “time of swords and periwigs.”

Rawlinson, Julia. Fletcher and the Snowflake Christmas. Illus. by Tiphanie Beeke. Greenwillow, 2010. Here’s another lighthearted picture book by this talented duo, featuring the sweet fox Fletcher and his forest friends.

Rylant, Cynthia. Silver Packages: An Appalachian Christmas Story. Illus. by Chris K. Soenpiet. Scholastic, 2001. A special train rumbles through Appalachian coal-mine country, bringing gifts to the children. Will Frankie get the doctor’s kit he’s longing for?

Watson, Wendy. Holly’s Christmas Eve. HarperCollins, 2002. Children love this thrilling adventure featuring the lives of Christmas ornaments. The brave toys must find a way to rescue Holly’s arm after it is gobbled up by the monstrous vacuum cleaner.

Novels to Read Aloud

Don’t miss the wonderful Father Christmas scene in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe or, for something hilarious, join the horrid Herdmans in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson. For girls ages 8 and older, consider the classic Little Women, in which the March family celebrates a special Christmas.