Our Christmas Picture Book List

Over the years I have read other blogs about reading a different Christmas picture book each night of December.  Well, we are doing things a wee bit different and reading them during school, since December is always our 'break' month.  I have collected quite the stash of Christmas books, and have managed to get 23 Christmas titles!  Many of them are family favorites.

I thought I'd share our list with you. Since I am always looking for books to add to our pile, I thought you might want to see ours, too.

1. Santa's Favorite Story: Santa Tells the Story of the First Christmas  -this is a GEM!!!  If you want to draw attention away from Santa, but still have him in your Christmas celebration, I highly recommend this book.

2.Who is Coming to Our House?   A sweet book for little ones.  

3.  The King's Christmas List-We reviewed this book three years ago, and it still makes its yearly appearance.  A wonderful book to teach about giving.  

4.  Tree of Cranes- This was new to the stack last year and we loved it!  Perfect for learning about Christmas traditions in other countries!

5. The Crippled Lamb - Can you have a Christmas list without this one on it?  I don't think so ;).

6. The Mitten - This is an older version of this story, but very sweet!

7. The Night Before Christmas, from Jan Brett

8. Madeline's Christmas  

9. Bless You, Santa!   This one is flat out cheesy, but a ton of fun to read out lout.  Always gives my kids the giggles!

10.The Very First Christmas - Wonderful telling of Luke 2 (direct text), that has lots of questions throughout from a little boy who is listening to his mother read from the Bible.  It breaks up the sometimes boring text (to a little one), and keeps their attention.

11.If You Take a Mouse to the Movies-another silly fun one!

12. The Wild Christmas Reindeer -I've actually never read this one before.  I'm looking forward to it!

13. Christmas in the Big Woods (Little House) -The perfect book for discussing Christmas traditions and how they have changed or stayed the same.  

14. The Night Before Christmas This one is from Mary Engelbreit.  We love this story and it's fun to see a different illustrator of the same story.

15. Clifford's First Christmas   This was a gift for Mustang's first Christmas.  So, we read it every year.

16. Arthur's Christmas: An Arthur Adventure (Arthur Adventure Series)  Nothing super special about this one, lol!  But, my children love Arthur :).

17. Merry Christmas, Space Case (Picture Puffin)  Another silly one.  We have never read the Space Case books, but my children think this is a very funny story!

18.Nine Days to Christmas: A Story of Mexico (Picture Puffins)  My ABSOLUTE FAVORITE Christmas book that we read.  It's wonderful.  You can read our lesson plan from last year.

19.On Christmas Eve  by Margaret Wise Brown.  A beautiful classic!

20.Jingle the Christmas Clown  by Tomie dePaola.  This is a very different story, but I like how it addresses the fact that not every one's Christmas is a good one.  And, that we can look for ways to help others have a good Christmas even if they don't have a lot of money or Christmas cheer.

21. Annika's Secret Wish  This book is amazing.  A genuine must read!!  

22. The Berenstain Bears' Christmas Tree (Berenstain Bears/Living Lights)   I think this is pretty much the best Berenstain Bears Book ever.  I hope you get a chance to read it!

23. The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree: An Appalachian Story  I saved the best for last.  This is my very favorite Christmas book (well I guess I can't decide between this one and 9 Days Till Christmas).  Be sure to have a tissue handy, even if you aren't pregnant!

So, that's our line up for this year!  I'm looking forward to reading all of these great books and doing some activities with them.  

Are you doing the countdown to Christmas in books?  What's on your list??

Merry Christmas,

Lisa

*If you haven't already, be sure to check out my current giveaway for a natural baby kit from Four Cow Farm*

Disclosure:  This post contains Amazon Affiliate Links.

If You Were Me Culture Box Books from Carole P. Roman {TOS Review}

When we were asked if we would like to review this set of books, I jumped at the chance!  We received the four books you see in the photo.  These are the first four in a series of books by Carole P Roman entitled 'If You Were Me and Live In...'  The four titles are for France, South Korea, Norway, and Mexico.

The layout of these books is really sweet. There is a young boy and girl in each book that introduce you to their country.  After showing you the country outline and telling you what continent it is on, we get a few fun facts about each of the countries, a long with a colorful illustration.

Here we are eating in Mexico.

Sightseeing in France :).  I normally wouldn't post a sideways photo, but it is upright on my computer and won't load right.  But, it was the favorite part of the books for 2 of my children and I hate to leave it out.  

Checking out the Northern Lights in Norway.

Celebrating a new year in South Korea.

Each book gives us a little peek into traditional culture, food, language, special holidays, and everyday life.  It is the same information given in each book just about a different country, so they are excellent for comparing and contrasting between the countries.

I intend to put each of these books in the correct continent box, but for this review we read all four books at one time.  Afterwards, I asked my children to draw a picture of their favorite country and why.

Here they are all around the world :).

Mustang is flying her flag at the Eiffel Tower.

Mini Cooper is staying at the snow motel and watching the Northern Lights.  I don't think she realizes how cold it is there, lol!

Charger is at the Eiffel Tower...that looks a lot like a ski lift, lol!!  He said it's a specialized elevator (always over thinking the mechanical side, that's his calling).

We REALLY enjoyed the If You Were Me books.  They are not too long, each has about 28 pages, and they are just the right size for little hands.  The illustrations are bright, colorful, and keep the children's attention.  There is just enough information to be interesting without being overwhelming.  But, overall, we actually learned something!

If You Were Me Books are written and illustrated by Carole P Roman with Away With Me Media.  They sell for $8.99 paperback and $.99 Kindle edition.  The Norway books are $11.99 paperback and $1.99 Kindle Edition.  I believe that Ms. Roman intends to publish more and we are eagerly awaiting them!

These books are PERFECT for Montessori Culture studies and I would highly recommend them for that. The publisher recommends ages pre-K through age 8, and I can certainly say that all my children ages 2-8 liked them.  I probably wouldn't have purchased them for my 8 year old, but she did enjoy reading them as part of the group. You can see what others had to say by checking out the crew blog.