God and sinners reconciled! Merry Christmas. Let’s do a curation of children’s books for it. I have heard of some people who do a children’s book advent calendar where they wrap each of their christmas books every year and open one each day during the first twenty five days of December. I find that so sweet and I think that would help everyone really savor each book. I also love having them all out all at once. I cannot decide! This list has enough titles to do it if you’d like! This curation does not include straight snow or wintertime selections, which will come later lord willing.
I love curating book collections (and I don’t discriminate against “lower” art mediums so movies too) that are beautiful or good in some way to share with others. And I am highly selective! In general what I look for in children’s literature (and all art forms) is a piece that somehow captures some of whatever is true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, of any virtue, or praiseworthy.
Books that come out into the house annually for a season are going to be pretty powerful for family culture so I want to find good ones. I consider this work to be refining a child’s palette. I am helping shape an appetite for what is beautiful, as defined by God.
Below is the extremely researched and refined list of favorites that thread our seemingly impossible christmas needle. Should your wants be similar, here is the metric.
- If it tries to go biblical, it is accurate. (So like none lol.) Also often a kicker, we do no imagery of Jesus (second commandment).
- Does not say someone learned, discovered, found, etc. the “true meaning of christmas… _______” and then fills in the blank with something that is not the true meaning of christmas. Note: The true meaning of Christmas is Jesus Christ is the light of the world and whoever follows him will not walk in darkness.
- Non-santa. (I’m meaning in his modern form.) We aren’t like, scared of santa and if our kids KNOW WHO HE IS they will not forget all about the incarnation immediately. For us he’s kind of a quantity thing; we don’t do him in books or talk about him coming, and we only have two movies he’s in and we save it for ones we really love something else about it (technical excellence).
- Other stray things like in The Nutcracker or Twelve Days of Christmas, women are modestly dressed and men aren’t effeminate.
You’re maybe thinking this leaves nothing but here they are, all twenty five. Hail the Son of Righteousness. ✨
- Annie and the Wild Animals by Jan Brett
- Gingerbread Friends by Jan Brett
- Little Christmas Tree by Jessica Courtney-Tickle
- The Story Orchestra: The Nutcracker by Jessica Courtney-Tickle
- God Bless Our Christmas by Hannah C. Hall
- A Very Merry Christmas Prayer by Bonnie Jensen
- Christmas Cookie Day by Tara Knudsen
- The History of Christmas by Heather Lefebvre
- Jesus: The Promised Child by Carine Mackenzie
- Jesus: The Real Story by Carine Mackenzie
- Mary Mother of Jesus by Carine Mackenzie
- The Best Baby by Catherine Mackenzie
- Jesus Christ the Best King of All by Catherine Mackenzie
- The Very First Christmas by Catherine Mackenzie
- A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition by Lee Mendelson
- Apple Tree Christmas by Trinka Hakes Noble
- An Orange for Frankie by Patricia Polacco
- The Twelve Days of Christmas by Emma Randall
- Christmas Farm by Mary Lyn Ray
- A Christmas Prayer by Sonja Rescek
- The Gingerbread Man by Richard Scarry
- A Charlie Brown Christmas by Charles M. Schulz
- The Special Baby by Hazel Scrimshire
- The Lightlings by R.C. Sproul
- The Gingerbread Man by Gail Yerrill
All of these (at time of posting) would be $273 to have the whole slate. All of them are strong and over a long time I have filtered out MANY ugly or poor ones, even just within the christmas category!
If it’s helpful, I put most of these as amazon links, so you can source them easily there! A few of these are from a publisher called christian focus and they are not currently available on amazon, so I linked to them on the publisher’s website where they are for sale.
If from this list you know of one I’ve missed that sounds like we’d like please tell me!!
This post is a part of my very selective curations series of books and movies.
