Jan Brett! One of my very favorite children's author/illustrators! I just get lost in her "border" stories and really love all the Scandinavian influence in her artwork. We have quite a collection of her books, and some have been around since Ben was just wee. The Night Before Christmas was my first Jan Brett illustrated book, and it is a sentimental favorite read every year before tucking the boys in on Christmas eve. This week though, we'll be reading a few of our other faves...
The Mitten- This was my second Jan Brett acquisition years ago. I found it in hardcover at a yard sale for a quarter. Yay for me! This is Jan Brett's take on a old folktale, originating in the Ukraine, in which an unbelievable load of animals find temporary shelter in a young boy's snow-white mitten. I especially love the illustration where hedgehog's "spines" poke through the knit of the mitten. What detail! And, because I owned another version of this story even before the Jan Brett one, we will read that too. Any Room For Me? by Loek Koopmans tells a similar tale of a woodcutter losing his mitten in the forest. The illustrations are soft and dreamy. We'll try to find some materials to make felted mitten ornaments to go along with this story. For Charlie I'll do a paper version that he can put animal pictures inside.
Christmas Trolls is one Will has always liked. Young Treva tells the tale of how she taught two mischievous and greedy trolls how to celebrate Christmas. Similarly themed Who's That Knocking On Christmas Eve? will be a perfect companion book. Here trolls come to steal the Christmas Eve meal, as they do every year. Only this time help arrives in the form of a young boy from Finnmark and his companion ice bear. How cool is that? The black icy night skies illustrated in this book are fantastic, and you can almost hear the frozen crunch of the snow. Check out the first line of the story. Brrrrr......
High above the arctic circle in the land of ice and snow, the northern lights shimmer in the night like a curtain of color hanging from the sky.
I'd like to try making some Scandinavian heart ornaments after reading these books. I've always loved Scandinavian designs and miss the days of shopping here when I lived nearby.
We can't let a Christmas season go by without reading Gingerbread Baby! In our family the title has been changed to "Baby Ginger", though, because that is what William dubbed it when he was small. Jan Brett's take on the Gingerbread Man tale, this book has young Matti cleverly catching "Baby Ginger" when Mother, Father, Farmer and Fox simply cannot. The lift-the-flap ending is a hit with littles. We will, of course, bake gingerbread men after this one. One of my favorite holiday rituals!
1 comment:
Oh, such fun! I also love Jan Brett. You are the one who introduced me to her, you know. The Night Before Christmas is the first holiday book I bought for our family collection, and I can picture you and me paging through it together at the bookstore. Her retelling of the Gingerbread Boy story is a favorite here, too.
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