Three years ago, after moving to Greensboro and missing friends, my spirits were lifted by the

extraordinary way Greensboro lights up the season. This year, at the urging of new friends, I

signed up for the Running of the Balls. Similarly, sharing new holiday books with children

provides me with cheer on winter nights.

William Boniface’s CHICKA CHICKA HO HO HO (Beach Lane, ages 0 -5) adds festivity to the

rhythms that launched classic CHICKA CHICKA BOOM BOOM.“A told B and B told C, I’ll

meet you in the branches of the Christmas Tree.” Julien Chung’s illustrations shows how

alphabet letters that wish to decorate a tree, wind up in a tangle beneath it. Bright foil packages

inspire alphabetic collaboration and also introduce young children to different shapes.

Writer Giles Andreae and illustrator Guy Parker-Rees pair their beloved characters, spirited

rhythms and the classic carol in the board book GIRAFFES CAN’T DANCE JINGLE BELLS

(Scholastic, ages 0-5). Gerald Giraffe and his friends show young children the joy of the season

as they kick up their heels to dance and celebrate.

Republication of Janet and Allan Ahlberg’s1993 THE JOLLY CHRISTMAS POSTMAN (LB

Kids, ages 5-8) brings fun to new children who will discover surprising letters and small gifts

hidden in envelopes within this book that are addressed to familiar fairy characters.

Cumulative rhyming has a Christmas slant in Kelly DiPucchio’s THE GINGERBREAD HOUSE

JACK’S FAMILY ATE (Orchard, ages 3-6). Illustrations by Nate Wragg show a brilliantly

festive gingerbread house that is gradually devoured by family members from the “secretly

munching,” present-wrapping mother to the mouse who “snatches the last crumb and slips out of sight.” The book has an excellent pairing of traditions, family roles, and humor.

Mac Barnett and Sydney Smith’s SANTA’S FIRST CHRISTMAS (Viking, ages 4-7) imagines an

endlessly working Santa who neither asks for, nor receives appreciation after his long night of

delivering. His elves, determined on appreciating him, begin a celebration that rather confuses

constantly-giving Santa until treated to a feast, stockings by the fire, outside lights, stories and

gifts of five fishing poles decides “We should do this every year.” And the author concludes,

comfortingly, “And now they do.”

Jarvis’ MR. SANTA (Candlewick, ages 4-7) begins when a curious child comes upon Santa and

asks, “Mr. Santa? Is it really you?” These and other questions result in a magical evening of

sleigh rides, sorting out who is naughty and nice, and trying to determine what is real and what is not.

Stephen Briseno’s TAMALES FOR CHRISTMAS (Random House, ages 5-8) celebrates the love of a grandmother who, from fall to winter, makes dozens of tamales to earn money. Seasons are tracked by events like school’s start, Halloween, Thanksgiving and December and the number of tamales Grandmother has created in a kitchen which is the family’s heartbeat. Finally, 1,000 dozen tamales provide money for gift giving and the best present of all… “Each other.”

Writer Elisa Boxer and illustrator Sofia Moore collaborate on BEAM OF LIGHT: THE STORY

OF THE FIRST WHITE HOUSE MENORAH (Rocky Pond Books, ages 6-9) “I was supposed

to be destroyed,” begins the book and becomes a refrain in the story told by a beam saved from the physically crumbling foundation of Harry S. Truman’s White House in 1948. This physical disrepair is paralleled by the emotions of “everything crumbling” during the war years until a wooden beam becomes “a beam of light…a symbol of strength for generations to come.”