I am in full holiday prep mode these days with Christmas cards being written, candies for teachers being baked, gifts being wrapped, and the advent calendars ten days in. At home, I just busted out some favourite Christmas books, and was pleased to find a few more in my mailbox, new for this year.
by Bakerella
Chronicle Books
ISBN: 978 1 4521 1116 2
I’ve never been a huge fan of eating cake pops, but dang, are those things cute. Bakerella has some of the best looking pops around, and this time out, they are all about the holiday pop. Not only and I loving a lot of the designs, but the tips make these look easy and fun. I’m new to baking, but I bake for our teachers every year and while I already had a fistful of candy recipes I was excited to try for this year, I have to admit, these pops are making me think that next year will be the year of the pop. Which gives me a whole year to practice and get this right… This was definitely the one that was the most pleasantly surprising of the bunch.
Interestingly, this is also available as an ebook.
by Jennifer Adams
Gibbs Smith
ISBN: 978 1 4236 2575 9
The same people who brought you the Dracula counting board book I reviewed at Hallowe’en have now turned their literary sights on Dickens, introducing the characters of his famous Christmas Carol via colours. Again, it’s amusing, and really more for the parents than the babies, but should make a good gift for the new parents with a bookshelf full of classics.
Santa Is Coming to Toronto
by Steve Smallman
Jabberwocky
ISBN: 978 1 4022 7521 0
This story of Santa’s visit is full of fun local details for Torontonians – but fear not, it’s not the only version out there. You live, perhaps, in Vancouver? Near the Rockies? There are also assorted cities and regions of the US available, or for those who live far from any of those, there is the more generic “Coming to My House” version, as well. Your bases are covered, people. The story is simple enough, about Santa’s night of delivering presents and running into a few site-specific obstacles. The hook really is the locale, though I have to give them that I was worried the story would suffer a lot for that, but it’s better than I expected. I’m going to be putting this one in the rotation of Christmas reading!
by Michael Storrings
Universe
ISBN: 978 0 789 32440 5
It’s no secret to anyone who know me that my nostalgia for New York burns strong, so when I was browsing in my local little bookshop and saw this one poking out of the box of Christmas titles I was perusing, I snatched it up faster than a taxi in a rainstorm. Sometimes, these conversions of Christmas songs just don’t work – they are a stretch, or really cheese, or overly cutesy. Not this one. It captures some of my favourite NYC things, from the iconic coffee cup to the chestnut vendors (why don’t we have these here?!), and now I can force them on my children, too. AWESOME. Truly, this made my day.