Books for Advent and Christmas...

This is one of my favorite times of the year! Our family has accumulated a nice collection of Christmas and Advent books so that we always have something fun or cozy or uplifting to read amidst all the craziness of the holiday season.

Here are a few of our favorite books:

For the younger ones (picture books that the whole family can enjoy!)
The Snow Bear
Snowmen at Night
The Last Straw
I Spy Christmas
Mary's First Christmas
St. Francis Celebrates Christmas
Silent Night: The Song and its Story
The Story of Holly and Ivy
Bear Stays Up for Christmas
A Wish to Be a Christmas Tree
Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree
The Tall Book of Christmas
The Polar Express

To read aloud to all
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
Christmas Day in the Morning (Pearl S. Buck)
The Birds' Christmas Carol
Letters From Father Christmas (Tolkein)
What Child is This?: A Christmas Story
The Gift of the Magi
Louisa May Alcott's Christmas Treasury
A Christmas Carol
It's a Wonderful Life for Kids, Too (This is new)

There are many others...what are some of your favorites?

Boy, this just makes me feel like a complete rookie! I'll read T'was the Night Before Christmas and whatever books the kids want. I guess I should head to the library and find a good read-aloud.

As a classical homeschooler, I'm knee-deep in read-alouds! I'm not a decorate for every single holiday type of gal, so this is hard for me.

We do make cookies and other holiday type things, we love singing carols. I need to find an advent book for kids. Yes! That's what I'll do!

This is the first year that I read Miracle on 34th Street, I found it surprisingly good, even though I don't do much Santa. It had a lot to say about cynicism and unbelief, kindness and faith. And it wasn't really sappy.
Also read for the first time, The Story of the Other Wise Man. I loved this book. Great topics for conversation here about the letter of the law verses the Spirit. Love verses righteousness.

Hello all! I'm new here but I wanted to post some books that we love.

An Orange for Frankie by Patricia Polacco (warning:tear jerker)
Room for a little one by Martin Waddell
The Legend of the Candy Cane by Lori Walburg

I have most of the ones already listed and enjoy them alot. Happy reading!

Tho we enjoy several of the books already mentioned, our favorite is Jotham's Journey by Arnold Ytreeide. The book's chapter format is such that you start reading it on the first Sunday of Advent and read a chapter each day until Christmas. (The last chapter is structured so the plan works regardless of how many weekdays are in Advent.)

Ytreeide's written several other books covering characters appearing in Jotham's Journey but we haven't tried those yet.

WalnutSpinney - Hi, and welcome! Our family has done three of the books by Ytreeide. We enjoyed all of them, but I think Jotham's Journey was our favorite, maybe because it was our first. The last week is special. We usually read those by the lights of our tree in a very quiet house. My children had a very hard time waiting from day to day. We really learned the meaning of "cliffhanger".

It's quite sad that a new publisher hasn't been found for the Ytreeide books! People are selling them used for obscenely high prices. :o(

thatbooksmell: Those prices are what's kept us from trying out the other books in the series.

Somehow I came across Jotham's Journey when it was still available new but the price for a used copy nowadays is unbelievable (to me, at least!) and the other books (used) in the series are priced high, too. I didn't even realize it until someone I recommended the book to told me she hadn't been able to find a copy locally so I offered to search bookfinder.com for her. I think $60 was the cheapest copy I could find... :(

Now I gotta go look. I think I borrowed the second and third book from a friend, but I bought Jotham's Journey when new.

*cough*, *choke* Wow. Jotham's Journey had two copies under $20, then it jumped in price up to over $200 for a softcover! Tabitha's Travels was not available for less than $48, and Bartholomew's Passage begins at $129 and there are only three of them!

I had no idea. I think I had better tell my friend. I may have given mine to our church library since my children have outgrown it, but I'm fine with that.

I had a note today from the author of Jotham's Journey, Arnold Ytreeide. He saw these posts and wanted to inform me that the books are being published again! If you want to check it out, go to

www.jothamsjourney.com

It's a nice little website, and there are some other very interesting books there as well.

The author also has a profile on LT, you can see his note on my profile if you are interested.

MrsLee ~ thanks for the information. I'm so glad to hear the books will be republished.