AMONG the retellings of the Christmas story, it is hard to beat the beautiful illustrations that accompany Carey Morning’s The Shepherd Girl of Bethlehem. Alan Mark’s ink-and-watercolour creations are reminiscent of the palette of the African-American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner, and share the same tender framing of the story’s characters.
The story itself is also delightful, taking young readers in the footsteps of a little girl who follows her father to Bethlehem. With attention to all the senses, from starlight to the jingle of camel bells and scent of frankincense, it captures both the excitement of night-time in the hills and the deeper magic to be found in a stable.
A very different approach is taken in The Christmas Story: Brick by brick, written by Rachael Hood and built by Joshua Whitehouse. Bethlehem is lovingly and ingeniously recreated in Lego, and the story goes at a clip in rhyming couplets. My four-year-old loved it.
Two other books offer a more traditional telling of the story. We particularly liked the ending of Antonia Woodward’s The Extra Special Baby, which depicts the baby Jesus growing up into a boy and then a man. My children still want to know what happened to his toy horse, which, we assume, was passed down through the family in good condition.
Meanwhile, as you would expect, N. T. Wright’s The First Christmas offers an account closely following scripture, down to the translation of “shelter” rather than “stable”, and “wrapped him up snugly” for “swaddled”. The final pages setting out how the story fulfils Old Testament promises make an excellent postscript.
© Alan MarksOne of the illustrations in The Shepherd Girl of Bethlehem
While not a particularly festive purchase, The Hard to Swallow Tale of Jonah and the Whale was a hit with my children. With a nod to Primitivism, Amanda Hall’s illustrations are striking, while Joyce Denham’s story doesn’t shy away from the peril of the biblical account. “I would rather die than help those people!” fumes Jonah, whose heart “froze like a stone” when he was thrown overboard. “Whale of a Time”, by St James in the City, makes a nice musical accompaniment to the book’s message: that Jonah must learn to comprehend that God’s love “stretched all the way across the world — from Tarshish in the west to Ninevah in the east”.
The Christmas Wish-tastrophe is a book for older primary-school children which, in a pastiche of Jane Austen, tells the tale of a young orphan girl sent to live with a grand relative in a stately home. Cariad Lloyd, who hosts the popular podcast Griefcast, lost her own father when she was a teenager, and she explains that she wanted to write a “very silly, funny, magical story that also talked about death”. It is a lively and endearing read, but the message about the afterlife (that our loved ones live on in nature and in our hearts) falls short of the biblical reassurance that they are safe with the incarnate God who has “borne our griefs and carried our sorrows”, and whose arrival among us we celebrate at this time of year.
The Shepherd Girl of Bethlehem: A nativity story
Carey Morning
Alan Marks, illustrator
SPCK £9.99
(978-1-915748-10-2)
Church Times Bookshop £8.99
The Christmas Story: Brick by brick
Rachael Hood
Joshua Whitehouse, Lego builder
The Good Book Company £3.99
(978-1-80254-105-2)
Church Times Bookshop £3.59
The Extra Special Baby: The story of the Christmas promise
Antonia Woodward
SPCK £10.99
(978-1-915748-21-8)
Church Times Bookshop £9.89
The First Christmas (My Big Bible Story)
Tom Wright
Helena Perez Garzia, illustrator
SPCK £9.99
(978-1-915749-04-8)
Church Times Bookshop £8.99
The Hard to Swallow Tale of Jonah and the Whale
Joyce Denham
Amanda Hall, illustrator
SPCK £10.99
(978-1-915748-19-5)
Church Times Bookshop £8.99
The Christmas Wish-tastrophe
Cariad Lloyd
Ma Pe, illustrator
Hodder Children’s Books £14.99
(978-1-44497-148-4)
Church Times Bookshop £13.49