A Christmas tradition from our homes has been to give a book bag every year to our children (thank you to Dianne W. for this wonderful idea).

When they were young, we bought mostly picture books, activity books and comics; and although it’s changed to reference books, novels and magazines as they’ve grown older, it’s a gift our kids still look forward to every year. It’s the one present they can open while they’re waiting for the parents to get up. We have to admit it’s pretty funny to walk down the stairs on Christmas morning and see your kids sitting quietly reading around the tree! But it’s extremely gratifying as well.

We thought we’d share with you some of the Christmas books we’ve selected over the years. All of these books are beautifully written, rich with language and charming illustrations. We hope that you might find one (or more) that you would like to read with your child.

Books We’ve Given….

• The Jolly Christmas Postman (Janet and Allan Ahlberg)
• Christmas Tree Memories (Aliki)
• Franklin’s Christmas Gift (Paulette Bourgeois and Brenda Clark)
• Gingerbread Baby (Jan Brett)
• The Wild Christmas Reindeer (Jan Brett)
• The Night Before Christmas (Clement Moore and illustrated by Jan Bret)
• Dream Snow (Eric Carle)
• Merry Christmas Maisy (Lucy Cousins)
• Country Angel Christmas (Tomie dePaola)
• Tony’s Bread (Tomie dePaola)
• Winter’s Gift (Jane Monroe Donovan)
• Snowballs (Lois Ehlert)
• Little Robin Red Vest (now called Little Robin’s Christmas) (Jan Fearnley)
• Attic Christmas (B.G. Hennessy)
• Angelina’s Christmas (Katharine Holabird and Helen Craig)
• Lucy and Tom’s Christmas (Shirley Hughes)
• Fletcher and the Snowflake Christmas (Julia Rawlinson and Tiphanie Beeke)
• The Night Before Christmas (Clement Moore and illustrated by Tasha Tudor)
• The Polar Express (Chris Van Allsburg)
• McDuff’s Christmas (Rosemary Well and Susan Jeffers)
• I Spy Christmas : A Book of Picture Riddles (Walter Wick and Jean Marzollo)
• Max’s Christmas (Rosemary Wells)
• A Christmas Story (Brian Wildsmith)

Recent Book Purchases we’ve made for the Kindergarten

• Night Tree (Eve Bunting)
• Alfie’s Christmas (Shirley Hughes)
• Pippin the Christmas Pig (Jean Little and Werner Zimmermann)
• Auntie Claus (Elise Primavera)
• The Night Before Christmas (Clement Moore and illustrated by Barbara Reid)
• Richard Scarry’s Best Christmas Book Every! (Richard Scary)
• Olive, the Other Reindeer (Vivian Walsh and Jotto Seibold)
• Merry Christmas, Squirrels (Nancy Rose)