Sunday, December 1, 2013

monthly pics for december


Are you a huge fan like we are of author-illustrator Tomie dePaola?

Every Advent, Christmas, and even up to Epiphany, we tend to gravitate toward reading his many picture books that wonderfully capture the spirit of the season like no other.



Picture Books for December

The following picture books are some of our old favorites that we read year after year:

  • The Clown of God
  • The Lady of Guadalupe
  • The Legend of the Poinsettia
  • Merry Christmas, Strega Nona
  • The Night of Las Posadas 
  • The Legend of Old Befana

I recently picked up these new (to us) picture books from the library:

  • The Birds of Bethlehem
  • Christmas Remembered
  • Four Friends at Christmas
  • The Story of the Three Wise Kings
  • Tomie's Little Christmas Pageant

Out of the picture books listed above, I think Christmas Remembered is our new favorite.  In this memoir, Tomie dePaola recounts his Christmas memories from childhood to adulthood.


I really enjoyed the chapters about the times he spent in a Benedictine monastery with the nuns of Regina Laudis and then as a novice at Weston Priory at the age of twenty-two.


Additional Resources

I try to keep tabs on Tomie dePaola's current work at his website Tomie.com.  I particularly like his acceptance speech for the Regina Medal in 1983 on Being an Artist.

One terrific resource for your homeschooling needs:  Advent and Christmas with Tomie dePaola:  An Integrated Literature Unit Study at In the Heart of My Home.  We have done a few of these ideas in the past and my kids always enjoy them.

What's great is that Tomie dePaola has even more Christmas-related picture books we have not yet read but look forward to reading someday.  The selections seem to never run out!



What picture books are you reading to your kiddos this December?



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