Merry Tales

I love displaying Christmassy books around the house, and reading them to the kids of course. It is instant festive artwork to decorate a spare surface, and provides ready celebratory reading material within an arm's reach.

In Arch's room there's a few favourites like Mr Snow (sort of Christmassy, well wintry..) and Merry Christmas Maisy. It's December 5 and I can safely predict that Mr Snow is going to disappear well before December 10. There's only so many times one can read a typically verbose Mr Men story before wishing Roger Hargreaves a very unmerry end. Anyway, The Fourth Wise Man is a great story, but doesn't explain why baby Jesus and Joseph are missing from Arch's nativity scene. They've been gone for days, I only hope they decide to return before December 25th!


Next, I discovered this great thumping tome, The Selected Illustrated Works of Charles Dickens, including the Christmas Books for $4 in an op shop. Published by the Wordsworth Library Collection it is over 1400 pages long with reproductions of many original engravings and illustrations. We've never tried to read through Dickens' Christmas works before with the kids  - but this year may be a good one to start. Problem is, we'll probably still be ploughing through it mid-2013.


Oh and couldn't resist including the takeaway coffee cup from Muffin Break - love their Christmas designs this year.

Below is a title I just love from the Baby Lit series I posted about recently, Little Master Dickens: A Christmas Carol for any serious budding lover of  Dickens is a colours primer - and as with all of their editions, beautifully produced with stylish pictures to enjoy.


Here's a sneak peak inside:



I may need some of that purple drink soon - the kids have their last day of school today and the l o n g holidays are looming ahead. No, we'll be fine, really.

A long time favourite, I still remember the first time I discovered a silhouette illustrated tale by Jan Pienkowski. It was years ago in the school library. I was about sixteen and gasped at the magical quality of his beautiful work. The Christmas tale is a classic, using the text from the King James, the kids love to read through this book together every year.


and finally, here's one of the little resin nativity scenes I picked up in Koorong for $5 each. Put into the little gift bags and presented to them on December 1, each child has their own set of figures to display and care for.

Rejoice! A child is born..

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