As a digital subscriber, you’ll receive unlimited access to Horn Book web exclusives and extensive archives, as well as access to our highly searchable Guide/Reviews Database.
To access other site content, visit The Horn Book homepage.
To continue you need an active subscription to hbook.com.
Subscribe now to gain immediate access to everything hbook.com has to offer, as well as our highly searchable Guide/Reviews Database, which contains tens of thousands of short, critical reviews of books published in the United States for young people.
Thank you for registering. To have the latest stories delivered to your inbox, select as many free newsletters as you like below.
No thanks. Return to article
24 pp.
| Bloomsbury
| September, 2018
|
TradeISBN 978-1-4088-8978-7$14.99
(2)
PS
Illustrated by
Ivy Snow.
Direct, descriptive text invites readers to join a boy and girl through classic winter scenes and holiday activities. Numbered flaps count the days of Advent and open to reveal basic vocabulary words. The text gives the book a search-and-find quality through leading questions ("Some [trees] are sprinkled with shiny icicles. How many can you count?"). Soft, cozy illustrations reward attentive viewers with additional hidden details and encourage multiple re-reads.
Reviewer: Flannery Wiest
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
November, 2018
101 pp.
| Floris
| October, 2014
|
TradeISBN 978-1-78250-136-7$24.95
(2)
1-3
Translated by Susan Beard.
Illustrated by
Eva Eriksson.
"In Swedish tradition it is a tomte...who brings Christmas presents to children," according to the brief note that begins this entertaining Advent book. Our tomte is named Grump, and the tidy, precise illustrations show a little gnomelike man with a white beard, a red hat, and a perma-scowl. It's an old-fashioned story, but one that doesn't feel dated or sentimental.
Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
November, 2014
(4)
K-3
Illustrated by
Mark Graham.
In lyrical prose, a little girl's father tells of the preparations that led up to her Christmas birth. The lighting of the candles in the family's Advent wreath connects the story of the girl's birth to the joy surrounding the Nativity. The formal, poetic text seems oddly distanced from the father and child pictured in the sentimental paintings, which feature the rosy-cheeked family members awaiting the girl's birth.