THE GREATEST GIFTS
Wondering what to give kids this coming holiday season? Take it from Bernie Goedhart: “‘Books,’ said Father Christmas, in a novel I received for review recently, ‘are the greatest gifts of all. Nothing comes close.’ I’d add the fact that they’re easy to wrap — and that they’re wonderful to share with youngsters, especially at bedtime.” Below are some titles worth considering when you’re doing your holiday shopping:
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Eric Carle
Philomel
Here’s a perfect example of a book with staying power. Published last month in a limited anniversary edition with a shiny metallic cover, the tale of a caterpillar eating its way through various fruits — and leaving holes just right for tiny fingers to explore — before turning into a stunning butterfly has entranced preschoolers for 50 years now. A note from the author/illustrator, who is approaching 90 himself, appears alongside the title page, and this anniversary edition also includes an afterword from Dolly Parton, who long ago included this title in her Imagination Library project, as well as four pages describing the book’s origins (it started out as a story titled A Week With Willi Worm). For ages 2 to 5.
The Log Driver’s Waltz
Wade Hemsworth
Illustrated by Jennifer Phelan
Simon & Schuster
Here is another classic — but it’s only now gaining life as a quintessentially Canadian picture book. It had its origins as a song written by the late Hemsworth, a folksinger, and gained a legion of fans when it was used in a 1979 animated short released by the National Film Board (directed and animated by John Weldon), with lyrics sung by Kate & Anna McGarrigle. This year’s picture book, gloriously illustrated by Toronto’s Jennifer Phelan, incorporates end papers that hint at its cinematic origins, and adults sharing this book with children would be wise to also dig up a video of the NFB film so kids can hear the tune and enjoy the animation. Sharp-eyed children will then be able to zero in on the concert T-shirt our heroine is wearing in one of Phelan’s watercolour pencil drawings. For all ages. Father Christmas and Me
Matt Haig
Illustrated by Chris Mould HarperCollins
This is the third instalment in a series that includes A Boy Called Christmas and The Girl Who Saved Christmas. With numerous black-and-white illustrations, this volume tells the story of Amelia Wishart who, at 11, is rescued from a London workhouse and adopted by Father Christmas and his wife, and goes to live in Elfhelm, in the Far North. As a tall, gangly human, she towers over the elves and often feels she doesn’t belong. When she is targeted by Father Vodol, a truly nasty elf, she rises to the challenge and, with the help of the Truth Pixie, shows the elves who is truly responsible for the problems in Elfhelm, saving Christmas in the process — again. Ages 7 to 11. Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster
Jonathan Auxier
Penguin Random House
This book won the Governor General’s Literary Award for text in young people’s literature this year. With Dickensian overtones, this story of 11-year-old Nan Sparrow and the chimney sweep who cared for her from the time she was a baby until he disappeared from her life when she was six, is set in 1875 London, England. Nan, along with boys as young as six, climb up chimneys too narrow for Wilkie Crudd, clean the flues and deliver sacks of soot to their master. It is hard work for hardly any pay. Nan, who is Crudd’s best climber, often dreams about her Sweep, treasuring the small bit of char he left her — a clump of soot with a glowing ember at its heart. When she almost dies in a chimney fire, that bit of char saves her, it having turned into Charlie, a golem with a body shaped from ashes and soot, whose task is to protect Nan. The adventures that follow make for a compelling read. Ages 8 to 88.