Books Make Christmas Magical for Young Children
A wonderful book for these posts about making Christmas magical for kids says: “Everything I Need to Know About Christmas I Learned From a Little Golden Book.” While we all know this is an exaggeration, it’s a good reminder that children’s books are a great way to share the magic of the season.
There is an amazing selection of books about Christmas and other celebrations for kids. There are stories about people all around the world, animals both imaginary and real, favorite classics, and some new ones released this year. Books range from reproductions of a few stories more than a hundred years old to some digital ones recently published. The Grinch stole Christmas but the twins, Minerva and Molly, are “The Goats Who Ate Christmas” in a story by La Belle Rouge. Santa has many adventures in books, and so do kids. Books with pictures of the journey to Bethlehem and the birth of Jesus connect children to the long ago night.
A story about Christmas is really two-for-one because it combines both the magic of Christmas and of books: “A book is an entire self-contained unit. Kids can see the pictures and the book as a whole. The story seems to begin at the front of the book and ends at the back, but it echoes in the mind over and over….What we can do and where we can go is limitless in books.” (from What Makes a Magical Childhood?) Stories in images and others with texts in rhymes, appeal to kids and grownups.
Kids can also make their own stories in pictures and words. Take some photos, add some text, print them off, cut them out, and they have their own books full of Christmas memories to share, now and in the future. Are there some books that you love to read to your children, and were maybe read to you, each year at Christmas?