AMONG the empty shops on our high street is one that has been temporarily designated a free bookstore. To my delight, you can regularly find old Ladybird books among the stacks. My favourite is a Do You Know? book from 1971, with pictures by Frank Humphris, including a cover depicting a huge lifelike whale threatening to swamp a small boat. Each picture contains so much of interest, and carries with it the belief that young readers deserve beautiful drawings that someone has taken the time to create, even if that means a bigger outlay for the publisher.
Today, so many books for small children appear cheap, with flat, digitally created images lacking in any imagination. Eyes are simply black circles. All the trees look the same. Nothing looks real. As a parent, I find them deeply depressing.
So it was a joy to find 10 Nesting Swallows, illustrated by Chloë Manasseh-Benjamin, among this year’s Christmas collection. In this “biblical counting book”, each page contains a stunning watercolour depicting a bird alongside a Bible verse naming it, from the chattering cranes of Isaiah 38 to the hungry pelicans of Psalm 102. A perfect gift for young animal-lovers, it is a feast for parents’ eyes, too.
A big hit with my sons (five and three) was Fox and the King, a re-telling of the parable of the sheep and the goats (“whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me”), in which a fox gives away to needy visitors all the gifts that he had prepared for the King of the Forest. It features a nice illustration of the King (a moose) playing with the fox cubs on the carpet, in a nod to Matthew 19.14.
They also enjoyed another woodland-set story, Katie Piper’s Your Greatest Gift, with its refrain that “though it’s fun to get, it’s even better to give.” I find that Christian children’s books often have a heavy emphasis on our own actions (God wants you to behave well) rather than God’s; so it was good to see an authorial note at the end about the “greatest gift of all” in the form of Jesus.
There are lovely illustrations by Lorna Hussey, reminiscent of Alison Uttley, in The Little Christmas Tree by Andrea Skevington, in which the kindness of the tree is rewarded with falling stars from visiting angels. Connecting it to the Christmas story will require some additional work on the part of the reader to explain whose birth the angels are celebrating.
Children of junior-school age may enjoy The Yorkshire Shepherdess: Christmas tales from the farm, ten true stories by Amanda Owen, whose farming family has now appeared on several television programmes. Isla, nine, enjoyed reading about a reindeer on the run from the village hall. She noticed that the stories were longer, with few illustrations, and so more suited to an older readership (nine and above).
Finally, I highly recommend Can You Find Me When Jesus Was Born? It challenges young readers to find objects in lively cartoon drawings of scenes from the Christmas story which nicely capture the busy communal life unfolding in the background. It is a style that will be familiar to fans of Where’s Wally, but is accessible to under-fives. It is an engrossing activity with well-written text telling the story, and a section at the end which enables readers to find the original in the Bible.
Madeleine Davies is Senior Writer for Church Times
10 Nesting Swallows: A biblical counting book
Tammar Stein
Chloe Manasseh-Benjamin, illustrator
Church Publishing Inc £7.99
(978-1-64065-853-0)
Church Times Bookshop £7.19
Fox and the King
Suzy Senior
Dubravka Kolanovic, illustrator
Scamp Publishing £5.99
(978-1-915074-04-1)
Church Times Bookshop £5.39
Your Greatest Gift
Katie Piper
Tilia Rand-Bell, illustrator
SPCK £9.99
(978-1-915749-19-2)
Church Times Bookshop £8.99
The Little Christmas Tree
Andrea Skevington and Lorna Hussey
Lion Cub Books £7.99
(978-1-915748-24-9)
Church Times Bookshop £7.19
The Yorkshire Shepherdess: Christmas tales from the farm
Amanda Owen
Puffin £14.99
(978-0-241-65725-6)
Church Times Bookshop £13.49
Can You Find Me When Jesus Was Born? Help the shepherd find his little lamb!
Andrew Neston
Mario Gushiken, illustrator
Authentic Media £9.99
(978-1-78893-449-7)
Church Times Bookshop £8.99