Jan Brett, synonymous with the holidays in my mind!

This December I enjoyed using Jan Brett titles for story time. 

Snowy nap is about the animals telling hedgehog about all the winter fun he will miss while hibernating. 

He is brought inside a house for a few days and gets to witness through the windows all of the things he was told about. 

The comical ending is when the other animals want a piece of that action!

Animals' Santa is about the animals debating which animal their Santa could be. When we discover who it is, it is spectacular. The spread, showing the animal replete with a basket full of goodies, is gorgeous!

Gingerbread Christmas has the Gingerbread baby forming a band with gingerbread instruments that Mattie makes (again not waiting the necessary time before peeking!). The band performs in a gazebo in the middle of the village and bystanders are getting hungry for a snack. Mattie disguises the instruments in snow while the Gingerbread baby distracts the villagers by singing. Then he taunts the people to chase him. He lands in a Christmas tree with so many decorations on it that he is very well disguised. The Christmas tree is a fold out in the book. The children have fun looking for the Gingerbread baby. It is just the right amount of challenging to do that. 

I was showing 

patrons some of the art projects available from Jan Brett on her website:

janbrett.com

I ran off for them the Night Before Christmas tree topper, the Christmas tree cone, and Christmas gift name tags. All of them exude Jan Brett's signature beauty. I like the name tags because they are creatively reversed to have FROM first and TO second. 

Two adorable books about cookies!

 Bookie & Cookie by Blanca Gomez

This book quietly invites the reader to interact with the book in such a way as to engage with the pictures and think about left and right in a book. This prepares early readers to read from left to right. Bookie spends most of the book on the left and Cookie spends most of the book on the right. What are the circumstances when they will move out of their pages? You will have to read the book to see, it is delightful. And all about two of the best things in life: books and cookies!

Delivery Bear by Laura Gehl and Paco Sordo

Bear is very excited to get a chance at a job delivering cookies. The problem is that the cookie deliverers were all rabbits up until this point. The customers are pretty frightened of Bear. Part of the delivery job is to sing a jingle. Bear decides to give the jingle new words that introduce him as "not scary" and also that he is available to give bear hugs. So cute!