A special way we enjoy keeping our focus on the true meaning of Christmas is to stock up on a collection of fun meaningful Christmas storybooks. Each day we love to snuggle up with a book or two and focus our hearts again on the richness and joy of the season. As we continue to read and share with our children, the more they grow to understand the beauty of Christ’s birth. Each year we like to purchase a book or two to add to our Christmas storybook collection that we can draw out each year. This year we wrapped them up and including this special unveiling among our advent calendar activities.
Here are some of our favorite Christmas reads for the season:
The Legend of the Christmas Tree by Rick Osborne
The Legend of the Candy Cane by Lori Walburg
The Legend of the Christmas Stocking by Rick Osborne
The Story of St. Nicholas: More than Reindeer and A Red Suit by Voice of the Martyrs
The Three Gifts of Christmas by Jennie Bishop
The Tale of Three Trees by Angela Hunt
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski
The Pine Tree Parable by Liz Curtis Higgs
The Gift of the Magi by O Henry
The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (adapted picture book version)
The Candle In the Window by Grace Johnson
Jacob’s Gift by Max Lucado
One Wintry Night by Ruth Graham Belle
Christmas Carols for Kids Hearts by Sergio Martinez
Josie’s Gift by Kathleen Bostrom
We Believe in Christmas by Karen Kingsbury
The Indescribable Gift by Richard Exathlete
Song of the Stars by Sally Lloyd Jones (author of our favorite Jesus Storybook bible has created a fabulous story of the birth of Jesus)
The Town that Forgot about Christmas by Susan K. Leigh
What Star is This? By Joseph Slate
Want to add your favorites to the list?
Why not stop with me, pick up a book and read to your little ones today. It’s the best foundation for their education.
I always loved “The Littlest Angel” when I was growing up.
“The Crippled Lamb” by Max Lucado is a recent favorite. As a disabled person, I found it wonderful.
I realize you have a lot of favorites added already but I just have to share one more. It doesn’t have any words but the illustrations certainly make up for it! It is A Small Miracle by Peter Collington and is one of our favorites now.
This inspired me to write my own post with our favorite Christmas books! Thanks for the inspiration.
Your list is wonderful! What fun to read through the comments, too. I found several I had never heard of before. I, too, have a Christmas book list if you’d like to try a few new books…
http://from-my-life.blogspot.com/p/christmas-book-list.html
Our family’s favorite when I was growing up was “Becky’s Christmas” by Tasha Tudor. It’s beautiful and sweet and beautifully illustrated, of course, because it’s Tasha Tudor. It might be hard to find, though. I have no idea if it’s in print.
Red Boots for Christmas is also an excellent book and video.
How sad that out of your list, the library only had 1 book! And that isn’t just from one library, it is from all the libraries in the city and surrounding area!
We love these books for Christmas:
- The Miracle of St. Nicholas (from Amazon: When Alexi learns from his babuskha that a Russian village church has been closed for sixty years, the resourceful young boy decides to prepare it for a Christmas miracle)
- The Donkey’s Dream (from Amazon: A donkey has fantastic dreams while crossing the desert, and at the end of the day the lady who has been riding on his back gives birth in a cave to a very special baby, the baby Jesus)
- St. Brigid’s Cloak (A legend about the very real St. Brigid as she witnesses the birth of Jesus)
Thanks for the list! I love reading good books with my girls! Another book we enjoy is, “All is Well: The Miracle of Christmas in July,” by Frank Peretti.
Thanks for a great list. I just requested several of these from our library. Our favorite right now (ages 3 and 19 months) is The Stable Where Jesus Was Born by Rhonda Gowler Greene, illustrated by Susan Gaber. My daughter had the entire book memorized last year and would “read” it to us. The rhyming and repetitive verse is great for younger children and the pictures are beautiful. I love books like this that can be read over and over without growing old.
I love a lot of the books in your list and I need to add a few to our library list that I’ve never read.
We just discovered a new favorite tonight, Mortimer’s Christmas Manger.
We also have a list of Christmas book recommendations.
I just love that there are so many wonderful books written about this special time of year.
When I was young, I loved to read How the Grinch Stole Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas with my parents. I also still love to watch both on TV! (Though not the Jim Carey version–that one’s just kind of weird.)
The Other Wise Man by Henry Van Dyke. It follows the path of the fourth wise man who spends his life trying to find Christ and give Him his treasure. In the process, he “loses” his treasure, giving it slowly to those in need. Only in the end does he realize that in serving these least ones, he has found Christ.
This is an adults’ story, but I loved it as a preteen–”On That Night,” by Elizabeth Yates. It’s about various people going to a Christmas Eve service, and a Stranger walks home with them and speaks to each of their hearts. It is sweet and beautiful, and reading it was my favorite Christmas tradition.
Thanks for the list! I’ve been starting the tradition of mailing my niece & nephew a book for each holiday as it comes around (Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas…). It is a rather inexpensive gift (shopping through Amazon I’ve gotten a few books for the price of a Hallmark card) and one that can be appreciated for years to come!
We just came across Sally Lloyd-Jones (author of the the Jesus Storybook Bible) new Advent book that came out this year called “Song of the Stars: A Christmas Story”. It talks about all creation waiting for Jesus to come and highlights some different names for Jesus like Prince of Peace, Bright and Morning Star, Light of the World, etc. as it tells the story of his birth. The illustrations are beautiful, too!
Thank you for this wonderful list!!
Thank you for this list! I am always on the look out for new books that will promote a Christ-centetered Christmas.
A new book that I ordered this year was “The Gift of the Christmas Cookie: Sharing the True Meaning of Jesus’ Birth”. I really love it because you can pair it with actually making Christmas cookies as witnessing tools. I have ordered some special nativity cookie stamps to use with my little boys this year and look forward to giving them the opportunity to make something yummy for our neighbors and family that will tell the story of our Messiah’s birth.
Another one we have really enjoyed not on your list (and on the easier side to read through for little ones) is “Christmas Night, Fair and Bright.” It has a beautiful rhyme that is very Messiah focused.
I have always, always loved The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomie de Paola. I’ve always loved Latin American culture, and this story is beyond beautiful (so are the illustrations).
Question: what things did you do when your children were around 12-18 mo old? My daughter is in that age range, and just isn’t quite ready for some of the activities I’ve wanted to do. However, I want to begin now to practice intentional traditions for our family, and was curious what things you did with your kids when they were that age.
My son is 16 mos. We’re doing the Advent wreath every night, singing carols that actually are about CHRISTmas, and playing a lot with a children’s nativity set. (I feel a little weird “marketing” here, but if you go to my website, there’s a tab for Growing (Up) in Faith, which is a book I wrote for teaching the faith to kids under age 5. Might be something you’d enjoy.)
This year I bought my kids “One Night in Bethlehem”, a touch-and-feel book by Jill Roman Lord and Paige Keiser. It’s new in 2011, which explains why I’d never seen it before. I randomly came across it in Chapters. It is a beautiful story for little ones. It starts out: “Each time I see the manger scene, I try with all my might to dream of what I might have done if I’d been there that night.”
Our other favourite is “‘Twas the Night: The Nativity Story” by Melody Carlson. Another beautiful story!
Thanks for the great list of books! I just requested the ones our library had & am thinking about putting some of the others on our Christmas gifts list. Reading with my kiddos is one of my favorite passtimes!!
Another you’d probably love to add to the list is the amazing illustrated and beautiful story “The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey” It’s an incredible tale about a lonely and gruff carpenter and a small boy who warms his heart. The mother of the child asks the carver to make her a new Nativity set, as hers has been lost. The boy, while watching him work, explains why every piece that he is making is important and the role they played in the nativity narrative. It’s such a sweet story that I’m almost tearing up just writing this!
My friend wrote a review of it, and you can see the author and picture of it on her blog (Scroll down): http://piccolinadesignsandplay.blogspot.com/2011/11/christmas-reading-recommendations.html
Enjoy!
Sarah M
My 3 year old daughter loves the Pine Tree Parable! These look like great book suggestions! I just ordered a bunch of them through our local library thanks to your suggestions. Thank you!!!
We love “Christmas” by Jan Pienkowski. It’s beautifully illustrated, and the whole story is told using verses straight from the King James Bible. Every single word is straight from the Bible, but it is arranged to be super kid friendly, with only a verse or two per page and lots of pictures. My kids have memorized a lot of the famous Christmas scriptures from having this book read to them over the last 2 Christmases. This book is a real treasure!! It’s out of print now, but I bought several copies last year for $1 on half.com last year.
Rachel, that book sounds great! I am going to try to find it! My little girl has been enjoying “The Christmas Story” which is illustrated by Eloise Wilkin. It also has mostly Scripture for words. She couldn’t believe it when I read “Glory to God in the highest! And on earth peace, good will toward men” since we had been saying that memory verse for several days!
We also do special Christmas books at Advent — I’ve been letting my daughter unwrap a couple books a week. I’d love to build up our collection in the coming years so we have this many books as well!
Thank you for such a great list!
We just read “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” yesterday! The kids loved it.
We love that one! We just finished reading it at our home too.