Well, there are only 7 sleeps left until Christmas day!
At this time of year, when I’m reading books to my children at bedtime, we always have at least one Christmas-themed book and (as we’re running out of days to talk about them) I thought I’d list a few all in one post!
One book that we continue to pull out since my eldest daughter was little is The Nativity, illustrated by Julie Vivas. It uses text from the Authorised King James Version of the Bible to tell the Christmas story and the illustrations really glow and make this a wonderful book. (You might know her illustrations from other books, like Possum Magic, Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge and Our Granny, or many others!)
We also love Twelve Days of Christmas by Rachel Griffin. It comes with a CD of the song ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ and each double-page spread in the book covers one day of the twelve days. Each page has photographs of brightly-coloured embroidery showing scenes from that particular day – our favourites: the Five Gold Rings worn by an elephant, and the Pipers Piping, who are snake charmers. 
We love this book and we never get tired of the fun CD, and of course, the twelve days of Christmas aren’t over until Epiphany, so we can keep listening until well after Christmas! (This was published in the UK and my children seem to think that the twelfth day should be ‘Drummers drumming’ and not ‘Lords-a-leaping’, but I don’t know if this is an Australian preference or a Newman-children preference. If we’re singing it along with a piano we go with my children’s preference, but we respect the CD version when we’ve got that on!)
I believe Twelve Days of Christmas is currently out of print, which is A TERRIBLE THING! But I’ve seen it at several public libraries, so you could add it to your ‘must borrow’ list.
The Twelve Dogs of Christmas by Kevin Whitlark arrived in our house just before December and (you guessed it) is a silly version of ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ and full of all kinds of dogs doing doggy things. We like to sing ‘Three French Poodles, Two chewed up slippers, and a fat cat in a fur treeeeeee’ very loudly. If you love dogs (and Christmas carols), you will love this picture book. It really is very silly but it’s good fun and has been read quite a few times since it first arrived.
What about your holiday reading? Do you have any Christmas books that you just love and you think we should know about?
~ Rebecca Newman (Editor, Alphabet Soup magazine)
The Nativity, illustrated by Julie Vivas, Omnibus Books, ISBN 1862910529. This book was selected for review from the Editor’s own collection. Twelve Days of Christmas, by Rachel Griffin, Barefoot Books, ISBN 9781841489407. This book was selected for review from the Editor’s own collection. The Twelve Dogs of Christmas, by Kevin Whitlark, Scholastic Australia, ISBN 9781741694451. A review copy of this book was sent to us by Scholastic Australia.
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