BookDads Recommend The Top 5 Holiday BooksNEWS | Nirasha Jaganath | December 17, 2009 at 8:35 pm
I came across BookDads while working with Hooked On Phonics and I have always been impressed with their quality of their content. It was exactly why I reached out with Steven and Brian to share what they considered their favorites for the season.
The holidays are a very busy time for the Book Dads family and our multicultural, transracial, adoptive household. In the last two weeks of December we celebrate Yule, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and our son’s Adoption Day. Here are our five top books for sharing with our son for the holiday season:
This book simply explains the phenomenon of the winter solstice, and how and why it came to be celebrated by peoples around the world. The solstice is described primarily in the context of the natural world, making this book widely appropriate for both freethinker and religious families of all denominations. Instructions for science activities and simple solstice celebrations are also included.
Reading The Magic Tree House chapter books to children can be a wonderful way to introduce them both to the concept of longer stories and to the history of America and other cultures. For children already familiar with the Magic Tree House, it can be a special treat for them to experience a seasonal story set in the world of characters they know so well. In this tale, Jack and Annie must go on a journey at Christmastime to save Camelot from being forgotten forever.
This lift-the-flap book is an excellent introduction to Kwanzaa for very young children. With its many Swahili terms and different traditions, Kwanzaa can be a bit challenging for children to learn about. This book cuts to the essentials, with each two-page spread giving a very short explanation about one of the Nguzo Saba – the seven Kwanzaa principles – and showing the corresponding candles on the kinara. The illustrations are bold and colorful, and help make learning about Kwanzaa easy and fun.
Todd Parr lends his trademark colorful illustrations and upbeat writing to this affirming book about all different kinds of adoptive families. Each two-page spread completes the sentence “We belong together because …” and tells the many reasons that adoptive families feel bonded to each other. This book sends the positive message that all adoptive families are born out of love, and can be shared not only with adopted children but also non-adopted children to introduce them to the idea of adoption.
This classic picture book isn’t strictly a holiday book, but carries a timeless appeal for its depiction of the magic of winter. A young boy awakens to find that it has snowed during the night, and goes out to explore his city under its snowy white blanket. The story is told without text, making it ideal for pre-reading children, and was a trailblazer for its depiction of a young African-American child as the protagonist.