We love books. We love Christmas. We love books about Christmas! Here are a dozen of our favorite.
1. The Miracle of the Wooden Shoes by Deborah Pace Rowley is a moving story about love, anonymous service, and the gift we receive from the Savior. As is tradition in his German town, Walter puts out his wooden shoes for St. Nicholas to fill with little hope that his will actually contain something the next morning. But they do! Day after day they are secretly filled with goodies and a scripture that testifies of Jesus Christ.
2. A Christmas Bell for Anya by Chris ans Evie Stewart. Anya is one of twelve young women chosen to ring in Christmas morning with her very own bell, lovingly crafted by her father. But it is Russia in 1917 and senseless violence begins as the reign of the Czars comes to an end. Will Anya get to ring her bell at all?
3. I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day – the telling of how this wonderful poem came to be and the events that led to its writing by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. This particular book comes with a DVD sharing part of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s Christmas concert when it was performed. You can watch this part in the video below. The narration is done by Ed Herrman. It’s beautiful!
4. Christmas for a Dollar by Gale Sears is based on a true story. It’s 1931 and the Kamp family is struggling to get by. The children expect there will be no gifts on Christmas Day. Then Father brings home one dollar in change and lets the children use it buy special gifts for each other. Joy, love and miracles follow.
5. The Night of Las Posadas by Tomie dePaola. I have to get a bit of my Mexican heritage in here. The people in a small mountain town reenact Mary and Joseph’s search for shelter the night Jesus was born.
6. The Stable Where Jesus Was Born by Rhonda Gowler Greene. Written in a nice lilting rhyme that children love to listen to, the story of that first Christmas night so long ago is recounted.
7. Animals Christmas Carol by Helen Ward has beautiful illustrations to accompany each verse of this Christmas song.
The animals tell of the gifts they gave to the Christ child as they shared their home with Him.
8. The Nativity with artwork by J. Kirk Richards. The story of the Nativity is told using scriptures from Matthew, Luke and John.
A new edition to our collection this year, each page contains beautiful artwork created by J. Kirk Richards.
9. The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey with CD: Gift Edition by Susan Wojciechowski shares a delightful tale of Jonathan Toomey a wood carver. Known to the children as Mr. Gloomy, Jonathan’s countenance changes overtime as he works on carving a new Nativity set for the Widow McDowell and her son, Thomas.
10. I Know That My Savior Loves Me is technically not a Christmas book per se. It is the words of a Primary song accompanied by the paintings of artist Simon Dewey.
This is a favorite with the nursery kids at church (18 months – 3 years) because they love to point out Jesus on each page.
11. Christmas Tapestry by Patricia Polacco is a retelling of two stories melded together. One tapestry sewn long ago by Rachel Zukor in Germany makes its way around the world and through a series of miraculous events reunites Mrs. Zukor with her husband. Both thought the other did not survive the camps they were sent to by the Nazis because they were Jews. How does this relate to Christmas as the Jews celebrate Hannukah? You’ll have to read to find out.
12. Who Is Coming to Our House? by Joseph Slate. The animals get ready to greet some special visitors!
Holly says
I know and love many of those too! A Christmas Bell for Anya is a favorite. I have to watch the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, orchestra and narrator performance of that story with Alfred Reed’s Russian Christmas Music every year. It makes me sob!
I’m grateful for a few ideas of books I could look for. I love to collect Christmas books but it can be hard to find ones that focus on Christ. These look great!
Jenée's Blog says
Goodness… something tells me we celebrate Christmas in a very, very similar way. I want to find some of these books you’ve shared in this post, and may I suggest two more for your collection? First: The Light of Christmas, by Richard Paul Evans. My absolute favorite quote from this book (which is the theme), “In your hurry to keep Christmas, you have forgotten Christmas. …The truest gift of Christmas is the gift of self.” Second: The Twelve Prayers of Christmas, by Candy Chand
Merry Christmas!
Chocolate on my Cranium says
We love The Light of Christmas too! We have a couple dozen more books that I could have shared but didn’t want to overwhelm so just stuck with twelve. I haven’t heard of The Twelve Prayers of Christmas. Off to look it up right now!
Jocelyn Christensen says
Ah look at these great titles! So many to explore…I love Jonathan toomey…we’ve got a cd narrated!
WaterWorks says
I will be hitting our library or B&N for a few of those. We have one or two already. We also have God Gave Us Christmas by Lisa Tawn Bergern and I like it’s “let’s not focus on Santa” but on giving and receiving Jesus message.
Amy says
These look great! We’ve only read a couple of them, so the rest will be fun to check out. Have you seen the new picture book, “The Christmas Train,” based on President Monson’s childhood story? It was my Christmas splurge this year!