Children’s books: think about giving a book to a child this year

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With December, the holiday gift season, just around the corner, many of us are struggling to find the perfect token so that our friends and family know that we are thinking of them. Books are still a great option. They come in a variety of sizes and themes; When chosen carefully, they can have incredible staying power for the recipient; and they are easy to wrap. Here are some random titles for the youth on your list. Visit your local bookstore to see these and other volumes.

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It was the night before christmas

By Clement C. Moore

Illustrated by PJ Lynch

Candlewick Press

For all ages

In my family, reading aloud Clement C. Moore’s poem A Visit from Saint Nicholas was part of our annual Christmas tradition. Available in numerous editions from various illustrators, our copy was a Hallmark pop-up book and my kids took turns pulling their favorite token, the one with Santa “putting his finger to the side of his nose, / and nodding his head, climbing up the chimney he got up. “They loved seeing him appear out of the frame of the book!

This year, Dublin’s PJ Lynch brings us a freshly illustrated version of Moore’s beloved poem, and while it lacks gimmicky pop-up images, it is rich with evocative paintings that reflect the era in which the words were written. (Originally published anonymously in the 1820s, Moore in 1844 claimed ownership in print, though scholars today are inclined to attribute the poem to Henry Livingstone Jr.)

Fall from the sky

Written and illustrated by Fan Brothers

Simon and Schuster

4-8 years

Terry and Eric Fan of Toronto, brothers who co-created The Night Gardener in 2016, have joined forces again to produce a new picture book that has already gained international recognition as one of the New York Times / New York’s best illustrated children’s books. Public Library. 2021 books.

“It fell from the sky on a Thursday,” the book begins, with a two-page black and white illustration of a garden in which the only color is a single marble in the grass. The insects and creatures that inhabit the garden, having never seen a marble before, try to find out what this mysterious object is, but without success.

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The cunning and selfish spider spins a web behind her, claiming the item as her own, and charges all attendees a fee to view the mysterious item, until one day a child’s hand reaches down to pick up the marble and carry it away.

What follows is a bit rough and hard to believe, but he opens the color book. The illustrations, especially in black and white, are beautifully detailed and fascinating, and the story will catch the eye of any preschooler. Pair this book with a jar of colored marbles and you have a gift for art and marble lovers of all ages.

The little wooden robot and the princess of logs

Written and illustrated by Tom Gauld

Neal Porter Books / Vacation Home

4-8 years

Tom Gauld, a British cartoonist whose work appears weekly in The Guardian, has several graphic novels to his name, but this marks his first foray into children’s literature. The result is an old-fashioned fairy tale with decidedly new twists.

It is the story of a king and queen who desperately wanted children. One night, “the king went to see the royal inventor, and the queen went to see a clever old witch who lived in the forest.” They wanted to have a child and both fulfilled their wish. The inventor built “a wonderful and intricate little wooden robot” and the witch used magic to turn a log into “a perfect little log princess.”

There was only one problem; Every night when she fell asleep, the log princess turned into a log and needed her brother to say the magic words to wake her up and transform her into a princess. Everything went well until the day the robot forgot to wake up his sister. By the time she realized her mistake, she had been thrown out the window and ended up on a barge with hundreds of other logs.

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The story that follows is one of brotherly love, grueling adventures, the kindness of strangers, and the ingenuity of a family of beetles. In the end, “everyone lived happily ever after.” And Gauld’s distinctive art earned him a spot on the NYT / NY Public Library’s list of the best illustrated children’s books of 2021.

With the exception of the Harry Potter books a few years ago, I usually don’t stand out more than the opening book of a series. But Amy Timberlake’s book Skunk and Badger, which I had linked ages eight to 88, helped me go through months of isolation last year and I would be remiss if I didn’t urge you to check out Book 2 of the series: Egg Mark. the place (HarperCollins). Like its predecessor, it is clever, entertaining, and illustrated by Canadian artist Jon Klassen.

– Bernie Goedhart