Our Christmas Books...

Prepare O Bethlehem

Christmas Trolls

The Story of Holly and Ivy

Angelina's Christmas

Apple Tree Christmas

An Orange for Frankie

The Night Before Christmas

How The Grinch Stole Christmas

We Three Kings

Christmas Tapestry

The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree

 The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey

Great Joy

The Little Drummer Boy

The Twelve Days of Christmas

The Snowman

Something for Christmas

Take Joy

Celebrating the Twelve Day of Christmas

The Lion in the Box

Star Mother's Youngest Child

A Child's Christmas in Wales

No Holly for Miss Quinn

Christmas with Anne

Christmas with Victoria

Christmas in Fairacre

Our Christmas Library Bag...

Christmas Day in the Morning*

The All-I'll-Ever-Want Christmas Doll

The Little Match Girl

Home for Christmas

Christmas in the Country*

The Christmas Wish

Who's That Knocking on Christmas Eve?

A City Christmas Tree

B is for Bethlehem

A Child is Born

A Christmas Memory*

A Christmas Tree for Pyn*

Lighthouse Christmas*

Christmas in Noisy Village

Book with an * are ones that we particularly enjoyed!

Gift Ideas for the Little Ones in Your Life...

I just wanted to take a minute to suggest two gift ideas for the special children on your Christmas lists this year:

The first is a brand spanking new book by Ancient Faith Publishing called A Child's Guide to the Divine Liturgy.  We received it last week and I will do an official review of it that includes photographs of some of the pages, but I wholeheartedly recommend that all Orthodox little ones have a copy!  It is simply amazing!

The second gift suggestion I wanted to let you know about is this dear little crocheted censer from Cozy House Curios.  It is beautiful!  The censer even comes with a piece of black wool charcoal inside. It is very well made and seems very sturdy! I am excited to give it as a namesday gift to Little Man this coming week! Since it is handmade by the talented Matushka Anna, you should order as quickly as you can to ensure that you can get it in time for Christmas! 

The Hidden Garden...

It was with great excitement that we eagerly opened a package from Conciliar Press on Friday afternoon just minutes after our UPS man handed it over!  Inside was Jane G. Meyer's latest masterpiece, The Hidden Garden:  A Story of the Heart.  It is a book with a truly lovely message of hope, forgiveness, and redemption.  

Written as a parable, The Hidden Garden is an old man's exhortation to his little grandson to tend the spiritual garden in his heart with prayer, love, and good deeds.  The author's poetic writing weaves the old man's tale beautifully as he recalls a life living without Christ and then the change that comes over him as he asks for help from the Lord.  Masha Lobastov's illustrations are the perfect accompaniment to Jane Meyer's story.  They are bold and colorful and yet possess a dream-like quality that is captivating to young children.

As Great Lent quickly approaches, I can think of no other book to purchase this year to help children understand the benefit of drawing closer to the Lord.  They will receive gentle instruction on praying ceaselessly, loving one another, and helping those in need.  The Hidden Garden is a gem that you will enjoy reading with your child over and over again!

Christmas Tapestry...

I have known what book I wanted to give the children for Saint Nicholas Day since I read Christmas Tapestry while sitting cross-legged on the floor of the library last year. What a beautiful book! If you have not had the chance to read it, run to borrow it! I am so excited about it arriving in the mail!

Do you get your children Christmas books each year? What are your favorites?

Audio Books...

Lately, we've been listening to some really great audio books. We borrow them through inter-library loan and listen to them in the car or in the morning while the children play or color. Some of our recent favorites have been:

Mary Poppins
The Complete Tales of Peter Rabbit and Friends
Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner
The Complete Adventures of Curious George
Tikki Tikki Tembo
Doctor DeSoto

Our daughter is not far from getting to enjoy so many fun classics... The Little House books, The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, The Borrowers, The Ramona books, etc. It will be nice to re-read those stories with her!

Her Very Own Little Bedroom...

And when she opened the door... she saw...

Her own little cot-bed with the green coverlet on, just inside. And the little square window with the green curtains blowing in the wind, And a yellow pot of nasturtiums on the sill. And the little green chest of drawers with the robin cloth on it. And the little green mirror hanging on the primrose wall, with Milly-Molly-Mandy's own face reflected in it.

And then Milly-Molly-Mandy knew that the little storeroom was to be her very own little bedroom, and she said, "Oh-h-h-h!" in a very hushed voice, as she looked all round her room."

The Milly-Molly-Mandy Storybook

Joyce Lankester Brisley

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Sugar Plum and I have been reading The Milly-Molly-Mandy Storybook recently and have been so enjoying the quaint, wholesome stories. There are a few books that we read over and over, never growing tired of the tales. This is one of them.

The Christmas Miracle of Johnathan Toomey...

In early November, we spent some time in Barnes and Noble (our son loves to play with the Thomas the Tank Engine table there) and I gathered up a few books to read while we were there. One of the was, The Christmas Miracle of Johnathan Toomey. I instantly loved the book and decided then and there that it would be the Christmas book I chose to add to our collection this year.

I was so happy when I read on Maria's blog that there was a good movie based on the book that she and her family really enjoyed. I ordered the book and the movie and today was the day that we sat down to read and watch as a family. We rounded out the afternoon by digging out our beautiful Willow Tree Nativity Set and setting it up on the mantle. I predict that this will be an annual tradition!

I wish that this movie was available for me to show you in it's entirety... it is that good! I will have to settle for the trailer and hope that you will be able to get your hands on a copy soon!

All in a Day...

I've been a little obsessed with Nikki McClure's illustrations lately (isn't Mimi lucky to live near her?) . I first saw her book, Mama, is it Summer Yet? at a little bookstore near the ocean and we were all so excited when we eventually bought it. I ordered a copy of the book she illustrated for Cynthia Rylant, All in a Day sight unseen (a first for me since it was an expensive hardcover book!) and was so happy to find that we LOVE it! It is a sweet little book about seizing the day... a child's version of Father Stephen's recent post entitled Here and Now. I would recommend this book to anyone whether you have children to read it to or not!

The Life of Saint Brigid: Abbess of Kildare...

A few days ago, I received a copy of The Life of Saint Brigid: Abbess of Kildare by Jane G. Meyer to review. I am embarrassed to admit I knew nothing of Saint Brigid's life until I read the book. When the package arrived, I ripped it open and devoured the book right then and there (the children were napping or else I would have read it to them, too!). I loved reading about this saint and am so glad to know more about her!

One of the best things about this book is the content. Though the book is written in easy to understand prose, it is chock full of wonderful information about the saint. The book is clearly meant for children, but I believe that this is a book that every adult should own as well.

The illustrations for The Life of Saint Brigid are beautiful Celtic style paintings. I thought that it added so much to have the traditional style of artwork used to depict scenes from Saint Brigid's life. I really liked the icons that the illustrator, Zachary Lynch, painted alongside the Celtic knot work designs and illustrations of the saint's life throughout the book.

This children's book was written for little ones aged four and up. Our eldest child is three and while this book went a bit over her head, she did get something from it. She loved the part of the book that discussed Saint Brigid's pantry being blessed by God so that she could give food away to the poor. In addition, she was quite interested in the concept of becoming a nun - something I genuinely thought was beyond her comprehension. She was very drawn to one of the illustrations of Saint Brigid after she had become a nun and was dressed in white (I think because it reminded her of an icon we have of Saint Elisabeth the New Martyr).

A hard concept for Sugar Plum to understand was the fact that many of the illustrations showed the people and animals with expressions that she described as "sad" or "angry." The style of Celtic art is to use teardrop shaped eyes which often create that sad or angry look in the pictures. I believe that this was tricky for our daughter to understand because she often uses the pictures to help her understand what is going on in the story and the way things looked didn't mesh with the words that I was reading to her. I truly feel that we had difficulty with this because Sugar Plum is only three and the book is meant for slightly older children who would be better able to understand the differences in artistic style.

I really loved this book and am so happy that we have a copy for our collection of Orthodox children's books! I am very thankful that I now know about this wonderful saint and plan on finding an icon of her to hang in our kitchen next to one of Saint Euphrosynos the Cook. The life of Saint Brigid offers so much encouragement to us all! I hope that you will read and enjoy this book as much as we did!

Orthodox Children's Illustrated Bible Reader...

My parents bought this children's Bible for Sugar Plum in honor of her namesday earlier this month... it arrived just in time this evening! We've been visiting both sides of our family since Sunday and are returning home bright and early tomorrow morning. I am so excited about reading it to our little ones!

Book Review: Pictures of God...

I saw this book in the latest Conciliar Press catalogue and ordered it right away. We ended up giving it to Sugar Plum on the Anniversary of her Baptism and it has been a favorite in our house ever since.


One of the things that I like the most about this book is that it can be read and understood at a variety of different ages. There is a brief "Notice This" section that is perfect for younger children and a longer section to the left with more detail on each of the icons presented. The icons that the author chose for this books are beautiful and very common to the churches in America (in my experience). I think that children who read this book with their parents will be able to pick out the icons that they learn about in Pictures of God in their own parishes.


The only thing that I found disappointing was the icon of the Saints of North America. They are missing Saint Raphael of Brooklyn! This book was published after his canonization and I wish that an icon including him was chosen.

I am very happy that we added this book on icons to our collection and think that it will help our children to understand icons and notice details in icons much more than they would have without reading this book. If you are looking for a book to add to your children's library, I don't think that you will be disappointed with this one!