Are the children in your house counting down the days to Christmas yet? If so, Annie Atkins’s Letters from the North Pole (Magic Cat, 3+, £16.99), is the perfect book to keep them on track. Taking its cue from Tolkien’s classic Letters from Santa (if you don’t already own this, find a copy now), it tracks the correspondence between excited, toy-loving children across the globe, speculating about potential inventions in the Father Christmas’s toy workshop and about the jolly man himself.
From remote control parrots to shoes on springs, the eager future gift-receivers have imagination to burn. Atkins’s text uses concise rhyme and gentle repetition to create a joyful read-aloud experience. The physical opening of each letter, meanwhile, adds an exciting, interactive appeal. As you would expect from Wes Andersen’s graphic collaborator, however, it is the design elements of the book that excel. From the typography of the North Pole postmarks to the patented designs, the book is a visual wonder, and Fia Tobing’s nostalgic illustrations are a magical match. This is the kind of book that - kept carefully - will be read for Christmases to come.
Yours, Befana (Greystone Kids, £12.99, 5+) by Barbara Cuoghi, with illustrations from Elenia Beretta, takes a more oblique approach to the celebrations of the season. Drawing from Italian folklore it takes the shape of a letter from the winter witch, who brings gifts to children on January 6th, and then brings spring to the sleeping world. Flying through the icy new year’s sky, Befana is “all powerful and unstoppable”. She is, however, not always benevolent, and is as likely to leave lumps of coal and ash to those who offend her as she is to sprinkle kindness on those who deserve it. This allows Cuoghi to bring a wonderfully sinister sensibility to her text, which aligns with the winter darkness. Beretta’s illustrations, meanwhile, have pops of neon pink that draw the eye into the more sombre palette of the season, making Yours, Befana a visually stimulating and unusual introduction to a variety of Christmas myths in different cultures across history.
There is no better Christmas gift you can give a young reader than time spent reading with them in front of the fire on a cold winter’s day, and poetry anthologies can be perfect companions. Sarah Webb has brought together a lovely selection of rhymes from an Irish childhood in I See the Moon and the Moon Sees Me (O’Brien Press, 0+, 12.99), from skipping favourites to traditional Irish songs, seasonal specialties and lilting lullabies, with Delaney’s boxy illustrations providing a nice visual focus. For Gaelgeoir families, or those just looking to add some more Irish into their lives, Ceol na Mara (Futa Fata, all ages, 12.99) from Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin, with illustrations from Tarsila Kruse and Una Woods, is a compilation of original sea-themed songs. They can be read aloud like poems, but have also been set to music by John Ryan, which is easily available online by scanning a QR code.
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It being the season for sniffles and flus, poorly children are certain to feel cheered up by a visit from Doctor Fairytale (Walker Books, £12.99, 2+). Catherine Jacob takes an oblique approach to familiar stories, sending in a fairytale specialist to help famous characters like Cinderella and Goldilocks deal with blistered feet and splintered bums. When all her good deeds leave her with a rotten head cold, meanwhile, Doctor Fairytale finds her patients willing to repay her many kindnesses: providing an extra layer of moral instruction to the tale, which is vividly illustrated by Hoang Giang.
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In Richard Adoyade’s Fairytale Fan Club (Walker Books, £12.99, 7+), illustrated by David Roberts, readers are also offered an alternative perspective on familiar stories, through the collected correspondence of one CC Cecily, senior secretary of the Fairytale Fan Club, who is something of an agony uncle to the variously tortured royals and rapscallions that populate popular children’s stories. What happens when you apply logic to unlikely happy-ever-afters or common sense to legendary conundrums? You get a very funny book.
There is a fairytale flavour to Black Gables by Eibhlís Carcione (Everything With Words, £8.99, 10+), in which the young heroine Rosella Frawley is exiled to her mother’s childhood home, in an effort to help her mother recover her memory. On her first day at her new school, she feels like she “is walking into the mouth of a hungry wolf”, and things don’t improve when the teachers appear. Ms Nightshade carries a life-sized effigy with herself wherever she goes. The Principal, Mr Edge, is dressed like a ringmaster from a nightmare circus. And then there are the students, chief among them the Glen Kids, who act as the teachers’ spies. There is a deliciously dark magic to Carcione’s world-building, which achieves a genuinely unsettling effect and the danger feels thrillingly real. Although the writing is not challenging, this is a 10+ book, best read by flickering candle-light as the evening closes in.
