Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Top 10 Christmas books for children

Mary Hoffman has written more than 70 books for children, and her powers of observation bring vitality and humor to all her stories and retellings.

Her books include Henry's Baby and A First Bible Story Book. Hoffman's best-known picture books are Amazing Grace, Three Wise Women, and An Angel Just Like Me.

Her new book is Grace at Christmas.

One of Hoffman's top ten Christmas books for children, as told to the Guardian:
The Polar Express by Chris van Allsburg

This Caldecott medal-winning picture book is a huge classic in America but not nearly so well-known here in spite of a film starring Tom Hanks. In it a man remembers that once, when he was a boy, a mysterious steam train appeared on Christmas Eve and transported him, along with other children to the North Pole to meet Santa. It's as sentimental as that other Christmas classic, It's a Wonderful Life, but the pictures are extraordinarily elegant.
Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue