Christmas Present

I find nostalgia a little boring, myself, so after spending some time browsing the Christmas picture books I'd bought in the past, I decided to look for some new ones. By new ones, I mean, books at the library that I haven't read before.

An interesting book I stumbled upon was Christmas at Anna's by Kate Spohn. I didn't find much about this book on-line other then the fact that it is owned by a number of libraries. One of the things that interested me about it is that the author wrote another book I was very fond of back in my young mother days, Ruth's Bake Shop. No link for you on that one, either, because it appears to be out of print. I'm having trouble finding sites that even include the covers of these two books.

Here's the deal on Christmas at Anna's--these two kids go to spend Christmas with their artie cousin, Anna. Anna has a studio and does things like inviting friends over to make wreaths Christmas Eve. Now, the kids I know really don't care to do artie things, especially at Christmas. Or, if they do, they don't want to do them outside of school. That's where artie Christmas stuff belongs, right?

However, I'd like to do artie things at Christmas time, so I liked the book. The illustrations threw me for a while, though. They are very rough, sort of amateurish, almost as if a child did them. A child who was a better artist then I was or am, but still, they seemed childish.

Then, I thought, wait a minute, Gail. This book is told by a child narrator. So the illustrations are the kinds of illustrations a child telling this story might make!

Very, very cool idea.

Now if someone looks for information on Kate Spohn or one of these two books, they might end up here.