PICTURE BOOK - Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett

Illustrated by Jon Klassen
A Caldecott Honor Book

2012 Balzer & Bray

HC $17.99

40 pgs.

Goodreads rating: 4.08 - 13,707 ratings

My rating:  5

Endpapers a darkish sage green

1^st line/s:  "On a cold afternoon, in a cold little town, where everywhere you looked was either the white of snow or the black of soot from chimneys, Annabelle found a box filled with yarn of every color."

My comments:  Start with a great story....about yarn! ....and knitting! ... and doing for others! ... add great illustrations ... make the protagonist a YARNBOMBER! ... and you have one happy knitter/reader/picture book enthusiast .... me!    I've read this over and over, but this is the first time I've written about it.  I think I'll take it to my "stitcher's group" next week and read it aloud to them.  Good idea, huh?

Goodreads:  This looks like an ordinary box full of ordinary yarn.

But it turns out it isn't.

PICTURE BOOK - Finding Christmas by Lezlie Evans

Illustrated by Yee Von Chan

2017 Albert Whitman & Company, Chicago

HC $16.99
Simpson Library

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  3.75 - 24 ratings

My rating: 3

Endpapers:  a medium solid evergreen color

Illustrations are very sweet.  The entire book is sweet. 

1^st line/s:  The Little Burrow was nearly ready for Christmas.  Hare sang as he decorated the tree, Squirrel sprinkled sugar on the hazelnut cookies, and Mouse scurried out the door."

My comments:  This was a quiet, sweet story of three friends who share a home.  It's about sharing, and doing for others, and a little bit about procrastination, to tell the truth!  I'm not super big on anthropomorphism, so my rating may be a little slanted.  It really is a sweet story, and the illustrations are very nice.  There's lots and lots of white space on the pages, which is also a bit of a turn-off for me, but I did enjoy it.  Recommended.

Goodreads:  Squirrel, Mouse, and Hare are getting ready for Christmas. While Mouse is out looking for the perfect gift for Hare, she finds Swallow sick in the snow. The three friends bring Swallow home and try to nurse the bird back to health. Squirrel and Mouse realize their Christmas gifts will help Swallow get well. As they give up their presents to help Swallow, they find the Christmas spirit.

GIVING at Christmas and All Through the Year

When I turned on my computer at school this morning, I saw that GOOGLE was promoting a "12 Days of Christmas" where you could give as little as one dollar each day to a worthy organization.  So I started clicking some of the buttons.  Days one through four all sounded really interesting, then I clicked on today's button, DAY 5, and it was for an organization called Donors Choose, which I had heard of, vaguely, before. What a fantastic concept...teachers from very low poverty area schools put in grants for items they wish to purchase to make things for the kids in their classrooms BETTER.  The first one, the very first one, of many - was for a fourth grade class in Chelsea, Massachusetts, the town in which I was born.  And I read more.  How I wish I could donate more than five bucks!  But that's what I did, going back to that original posting of Mrs. Hubert, for her classroom to have a photocopier instead of having to put in a requisition and wait for needed photocopies.  (I complain because I have to walk across campus about 50 feet to obtain mine!)
http://www.donorschoose.org/

Boxes for Katje - Candace Fleming

Illustrated  by Stacey Dressen-McQueen

2003, Farrar, Straus & Giroux

HC $17.99

32 cram-packed pgs.

Goodreads rating: 4.43 (320 ratings)

My rating: 5
TPPL

Endpapers: Excellent!
     Front - Mayfield, Indiana; May, 1945
     Back - Mayfield, Indiana; May, 1947 (yards FULL of tulips)

Illustrations:  Full page (no white :) edge-to-edge; bright, colorful, loaded with lots to take in. 

Title page:  Two-page painting of a girl (Rosie) with a package in her arms and her dog walking down a sidewalk towards in a "U.S. Mail" box

1^st line/s:  "After the war, there was little left in the tiny Dutch town of Olst.  The townspeople lived on cabbages and seed potatoes.  They patched and repatched their worn-thin clothing and they went without soap or milk, sugar or new shoes."

My comments:  I adore this story.  It's based on true happenings after World War II.  It's about people hearing of others with misfortune...and then doing something about it.  This is why I knit bears for orhans in South Africa and crochet 6 x 6 squares for afghans go to people who are colder than I am.  This story brought tears to my eyes.  I want a copy of my own!

Goodreads:  After World War II there is little left in Katje's town of Olst in Holland. Her family, like most Dutch families, must patch their old worn clothing and go without everyday things like soap and milk. Then one spring morning when the tulips bloom "thick and bright," Postman Kleinhoonte pedals his bicycle down Katje's street to deliver a mysterious box – a box from America! Full of soap, socks, and chocolate, the box has been sent by Rosie, an American girl from Mayfield, Indiana. Her package is part of a goodwill effort to help the people of Europe. What's inside so delights Katje that she sends off a letter of thanks – beginning an exchange that swells with so many surprises that the girls, as well as their townspeople, will never be the same.  This inspiring story, with strikingly original art, is based on the author's mother's childhood and will show young readers that they, too, can make a difference. 

The Sparkle Box - Jill Hardie

Illustrated by Christine Kornacki

"A Gift with the Power to Change Christmas"

2012, Ideal Children's Books

HC $19.99

32 pages

Goodreads rating: 4.51 (41 ratings)

My rating: 4.5

Endpapers:  Evergreen

Title Page: 1-inch red frame, 4 x 4 illustration of the Sparkle box (without the actual sparkle, here) in the middle.  The cover has great "real" silver sparkle on the box.

Illustrations:  Full page, realistic, colorful....large, bold, lovely.

1^st line:  "Snowflakes swirled through the air as Samand his mom stopped to look in the toy store window."

Opening page:  "Dear reader, you are the light of the world - make it sparkle."

My comments:  What a super - fantastic idea -- keep a special box (in this case, sparkly, glittery silver) on the mantle and jot down things you've done for others during the Christmas season. Open it and share on Christmas morning. This book explains that Sam's family does it as a birthday gift to Jesus (this is the first "religious" mention in the book, and the only mention, on the last page, other than two quotes from the book of Matthew in the "Notes from the author.")  This book will definitely take away some of the commercialism of the holidays. I LOVE the idea! (I wish it wasn't limited to Christian kids, thus my lowering of the rating by a half point.)

Goodreads: During the Christmas season, Sam and his parents participate in various acts of kindness to others and record their good deeds on slips of paper to be placed in a sparkly box, as a gift to Jesus.

An Orange for Frankie - Patricia Polacco

Illustrated by the author

2004 Philomel

HC $16.99

40 pages

Goodreads rating: 4027 (332 ratings)

My rating: 5

Endpapers: Front:  an aerial view of the house, outhouses, and landscape during a winter storm/ Back: the same storm, looking at the house from the front, in the evening, and its close surroundings

Title Page:  Double-page spread - a train stopped in the middle of a snowstorm on the middle of nowhere

Illustrations:  trademark Patricia Polacco

1^st page:  "Every time I peel an orange and inhale the scent of it and feel the mist that sprays from its skin, I think of a very special Christmas and a flaxen-haired boy who lived many years before I was even born."

My comments:  What a moving Christmas story!  I was actually a little teary at the end.  Based on a true story, as many of Ms. Polacco's are, this one was told by her grandmother and based on her grandmother's youngest brother.  It is a story from a hundred years ago, still being kept alive and honored by her entire family.  It is full of pictures of America's past. A large, hard-working family enjoys a simpler Christmas than we're used to, one steeped in traditions and hard work.  A completely lovely "short story," illuminated by Patricia Polacco's incredible art.  Loved it.

Goodreads:  The Stowell family is abuzz with holiday excitement, and Frankie, the youngest boy, is the most excited of all. But there's a cloud over the joyous season: Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and Pa hasn't returned yet from his trip to Lansing. He promised to bring back the oranges for the mantelpiece. Every year there are nine of them nestled among the evergreens, one for each of the children. But this year, heavy snows might mean no oranges . . . and, worse, no Pa!

This is a holiday story close to Patricia Polacco's heart. Frankie was her grandmother's youngest brother, and every year she and her family remember this tale of a little boy who learned--and taught--an important lesson about giving, one Christmas long ago.

How Dalia Put a Big Yellow Comforter Inside a Tiny Blue Box – Linda Heller

(And Other Wonders of Tzedakah)
Illustrated by Stacey Dressen McQueen
Tricycle Press, 2011
HC $16.99
32 pgs.
Rating: 4
Endpapers: Bright yellow background, completely covered with a one-piece cut paper illustration
Acrylics and oil pastel. Very nice.
Afterword: An excellent history of tzedakah and tzedakah boxes.

First line/s: Dalia liked to learn things and make things, and she did just that at the community center.

Dalia teaches her younger brother, Yossi, about caring about others by teaching him about her tzedakah box. She adds money to hers from selling lemonade, her birthday, and weeding the garden. She has Yossi join her when she returns to the community center, and the children combine their tzedakah to purchase a warm comforter, a beautiful butterfly bush, and yummy banana cream pie, which they then give to an elderly, lonely shut-in.