With the real world distinctly lacking in hope and sparkle, rekindle that feeling by escaping into a festive children’s book. Gathered together here are 24 tales of seasonal magic for Christmas 2020. Continue reading
Category Archives: Best Christmas Ever
Doctor Who – The Wintertime Paradox by Dave Rudden and Alexis Snell
Like many people I found it hard to concentrate during lockdown earlier this year. Doom-scrolling and rolling news distracted me from all the books that I now had time to read. Even reading children’s books, normally my happy place, became hard to access. Salvation came, not for the first time, from Doctor Who. First I … Continue reading
The Snowflake by Benji Davies
Benji Davies produces picture books in the ‘timeless classic’ mould: luscious productions like the Storm Whale series, that already feel like big budget adaptations of something you’ve known and loved for years. In the Snowflake we follow two converging narratives: a young girl, Noelle, dreaming of snow at Christmas and a solitary snowflake, born from … Continue reading
The Christmas Bower by Polly Redford and Edward Gorey
The gaiety of Christmas isn’t natural territory for the master of the macabre. When we last met Edward Gorey he was recounting the season’s Twelve Terrors with John Updike. The Christmas Bower is a collaboration with writer Polly Redford, Gorey’s high-school friend from Chicago. As teenagers the pair agreed to one day make a book together and … Continue reading
Molesworth – Ding-Dong Farely Merily For Xmas by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle
‘Xmas is often a bit of a strane wot with pretending that everything is a surprise. Above all father xmas is a strane. You canot so much as mention that there is no father xmas when some grown-up sa Hush not in front of wee tim. So far as i am concerned if father xmas … Continue reading
The Country Child by Alison Uttley
The greatest children’s writers are often those with the best recall of their own childhoods. Few have better memories than Alison Uttley. The Country Child (1931) is an account of her early years growing up in rural Derbyshire. The amount of detail she packs in is extraordinary, not just in the descriptions of places and … Continue reading
Brave Irene by William Steig
Best known (in the UK at least) as the creator of Shrek, William Steig had a long career as a successful cartoonist before turning his hand to children’s books later in life. Brave Irene (1986) was published when he was 79 but reads like the work of a picture book creator at the height of … Continue reading
Ramona and her Father by Beverly Cleary
Ramona Quimby featured in the books of Beverley Cleary for nearly fifty years. We first met her as a young pest, watched her become brave, then, by 1977, saw her mature into an empathetic, if dramatically stubborn seven year old. This seventh story focuses on Ramona’s relationship with her father as he loses his job and … Continue reading
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder and Garth Williams
Winter was coming. The days were shorter, and frost crawled up the window panes at night. Soon the snow would come. Then the log house would be almost buried in snowdrifts, and the lake and the streams would freeze. In the bitter cold weather Pa could not be sure of finding any wild game to … Continue reading
The Other Goose by Judith Kerr
‘I have never particularly wanted to draw geese (though they’re quite interesting when you do), but the story was handed to me on a plate and I didn’t feel I could waste it.’ Judith Kerr spent much of her career drawing cats of one shape or another. She writes in her biography Creatures about her … Continue reading
Morris’s Disappearing Bag by Rosemary Wells
I’m going to jump right in and say that this is one of the greatest Christmas picture books of all time: Rosemary Wells is up there with Judith Kerr, Raymond Briggs and Shirley Hughes. Morris’s Disappearing Bag is a funny exploration of family dynamics, using Christmas as an elegant structural device. The story begins on … Continue reading
The Midnight Guardians by Ross Montgomery
“I’ve spent months thinking about what I was going to be doing for Christmas. I never thought I’d be in a hole under a tree in the middle of nowhere.” Ruth shivered, and shuffled closer. “Yes, well, I never thought I’d ride a tiger.” Col is an evacuee travelling through the worst storms to ever … Continue reading
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
‘THERE was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid. He was fat and bunchy, as a rabbit should be; his coat was spotted brown and white, he had real thread whiskers, and his ears were lined with pink sateen.’ A rabbit is for life, not just for Christmas, as the … Continue reading
Sledges to the Rescue by Raymond Briggs
‘It was early on Christmas morning and the snow was almost knee deep.’ Raymond Briggs’ very first snowbound adventure from 1963, Sledges to the Rescue takes place on Christmas day in the 1930s. It’s based on his own childhood memories of a time when milkmen used to do their rounds before they could enjoy their … Continue reading
The Naughtiest Story of All by Dorothy Edwards and Shirley Hughes
‘This is such a very terrible story about my naughty little sister that I hardly know how to tell it to you. It is all my about one Christmas-time when I was a little girl, and my naughty little sister was a very little girl.’ Originally published in the first volume of My Naughty Little Sister in 1952, this … Continue reading
Christmas Shopping from Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers
As with most Mary Poppins stories, Christmas Shopping begins normally enough – a bus journey into town. But it gets stranger from there, thanks mainly to one of the most peculiar characters in all of children’s fiction. The titular nanny, cum immortal, who allows us to see a familiar festive situation through very different eyes. … Continue reading
The Dolls’ House by Rumer Godden
‘On Christmas morning the Plantaganets woke to hear real carol singers in the street outside. “Peace and goodwill among men,” sang the carol singers. “And among dolls,” said Mr Plantaganet. “I hope among dolls.” Unfortunately for Mr Plantaganet, an abused doll with a crudely drawn pencil moustache on his upper lip, things are about to … Continue reading
Brambly Hedge: Winter Story by Jill Barklem
The final book in the original quartet of stories from Brambly Hedge sees snowfall deep enough for the community of mice to organise a Snow Ball. Rather than dig in and rely on their own reserves to see them through, these rodents survive through sharing resources and community events. Jill Barklem’s world is a fascinating … Continue reading
The Silent Stars Go By – Sally Nicholls
‘And then it was Christmas Eve… The house was full of expectation and excitement – cooking smells coming from the kitchen, shouts from the children, people disappearing into rooms to write Christmas cards and wrap presents and plan complicated secrets.’ Set a century ago, The Silent Stars Go By achieves the very clever trick of … Continue reading
Christmas from More About Paddington by Michael Bond
Michael Bond’s festive tale from the second volume of Paddington stories sees our Peruvian hero celebrating his first Christmas with the Brown family. This provides plenty of scope for the bear unleash his trademark brand of good natured chaos. Paddington’s Christmas sees him putting up decorations, discovering the joys of festive hats and wallowing in … Continue reading
The Conscience Pudding by E. Nesbit lllustrated by Erik Blegvad
‘It was Christmas, nearly a year after Mother died. I cannot write about Mother—but I will just say one thing. If she had only been away for a little while, and not for always, we shouldn’t have been so keen on having a Christmas. I didn’t understand this then, but I am much older now, and … Continue reading
Dulce Domum from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Returning home through the wild woods, Mole and Rat take a detour and visit Mole’s long forgotten home. A group of carol singing field mice come to call and although there is no pâté de foie gras or champagne on offer, there is a roaring fire and a jug of mulled ale. It might be a little … Continue reading
Christmas in Noisy Village by Astrid Lindgren
The escapades of Astrid Lindgren’s Bullerby children come with an added layer of muted pleasure thanks to the thick snow that covers everything in Noisy Village at this time of year. There are no strong girls, pet monkeys or outlandish sets of bunches to be found here, instead the sacred moments of the holiday season … Continue reading
The Christmas Diaries of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend
Between the ages of 13¾ and 16, Adrian Albert Mole recorded memories of his less than perfect Christmases. As well as being incredibly funny, Sue Townsend’s books are fantastic time capsules of British consumer culture in the early 1980s. I too remember buying all my Christmas presents for under a pound from Woolies and enjoying family … Continue reading
Christmas from Sculptor’s Daughter by Tove Jansson
‘The smaller you are, the bigger Christmas is.’ Tove Jansson’s present tense recollections of her childhood Christmases, first collected in her memoir Sculptor’s Daughter, contain the same combination of pragmatism and fantasy that runs through the Moomin stories. But where her trolls feared the coming of the spruce in her story The Fir Tree, young … Continue reading
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