Christmas Books

I thought I would put some of my favorite Christmas books here. You may want to pick them up for yourself or give them as gifts!

Of course there are an abundance of kids books for Christmas. In addition to the "usuals" of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Twas the Night Before Christmas, and Olive the Other Reindeer, here are some other kid books that are great Christmas gifts!

Anything by Robert Sabuda! He is an amazing cut paper artist who creates intricate pop-up books of some of our favorite stories. There are tons of Sabuda cut paper books out there. These books are very delicate and would not last long in the hands of children under 4 or 5 years old. But they make gorgeous gifts!

For adults there are many books also with Christmas themes. One of my absolute favorite Christmas books is Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris. It's a very thin book with about 6 stories in it (there's a re-released hard cover of this book out now with 6 more stories - I have to get that now too!).

One of Sedaris's most notorious stories, The SantaLand Diaries, is in this collection. It's based on his Christmas spent as an elf in Macy's in NYC. He explains the elf ranks and some of the hysterical things he would tell kids if they weren't good. Another great essay is called, Dinah, The Christmas Whore, and it's about a Christmas when he (and his sister) "saved" a prostitute from an abusive boyfriend and brought her home for dinner.

I haven't read a bad book by David Sedaris. They are extremely funny and satirical. And the sad thing is that I can relate to some of them a little too well! Holidays on Ice is a perfect stocking stuffer too!

A great writer, Elizabeth Berg, has many wonderful books out. But she has also written, The Handmaid and the Carpenter, a fictional account of Mary and Joseph. Berg is one of my favorite authors. Her writing is so lyrical and smooth. This book is no exception.

Expanding on the story of Mary and Joseph, Berg delves into what they would have faced in that time. Why did Joseph stay with Mary when he could have had her killed? What was going through their minds and hearts facing this news of the Son of God as their son?

It is an amazingly well written story that puts you right there in the midst of the true meaning of Christmas. I reread it every Christmas because it is so perfect.

There are many other Christmas books out there, but these are definitely the best. Feel free to send me an email if you are looking to give a book as a gift but aren't sure what to get. I'm pretty good at finding the perfect books for people.

Merry Christmas!

Sunday List of Dreams

We all have that list. Well, we all have many lists. But there is one list that is always bigger than all the others. That list of things we want to do...this year...before we die...eventually. In The Sunday List of Dreams, the main character, Connie writes and rewrites her list of dreams but has never done one of the items on that list. Now, facing retirement from a wonderful nursing career, Connie feels she can maybe tackle one or two of those items. The list of dreams contains things such as not setting an alarm clock to reconnecting with daughter Jessica, from buying a convertible - preferably red - to maybe, possibly having sex!

When Connie heads out to NYC from small town Indiana to reconnect with her oldest daughter Jessica, a whole other world is opened to her. She learns that Jessica is the founder and CEO of one of the most successful sex toy stores in the US! Connie, who can barely say the words "sex toys" ends up becoming a successful saleswoman at Jessica's store. And as you can imagine, there are some funny tales in that. But a mother-daughter bond is rekindled and items start getting crossed off her list at an amazing rate.

Kris Radish writes what women want to read and what women can relate to. I love her books. They stray from the average, cookie-cutter, women's fiction books out there. If I had money, I would buy a set of her books for all of my women friends & all of their women friends & so on. Underneath all the lists and sex toys in this book is a real story we all know - the mother-daughter bonds. But also finding yourself in that bond. It's not a mother-little girl bond and that may be the hardest thing for mothers to realize. The little girls grow up and become independent, strong women who can be nurses, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and even CEOs of sex toy empires.

Wicked (and others)

Of course by now Wicked is a household name due mostly to the Broadway musical. But as in movies of books - the Broadway play, as amazing and captivating as it is, is just a small piece of what is actually covered in the book. Gregory Maguire is a modern day Grimm's Brother. He is an expert at taking all too familiar stories and giving them a twist here and a stretch there creating something entirely unique and original.

Since Wicked rose to such high acclaim, a sequel, Son of A Witch, was born. And now the third installment of what is now called the Wicked Years Series, A Lion Among Men, has come out. Will each of the other characters get their say too? I sure hope so. Not only are these books fun to read but they are very intelligent reads. Many fairy tales have underlying messages and Maguire's books have political, social, and economic stories underneath the talking animals and witches. (Hey - it worked for Orwell with Animal Farm!)

If you are like me, you become attached to good writers and want to read everything they have written. Maguire has more than the tales of Oz out there. So if you loved Wicked - peruse the rest of his novels.

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister is a reworking of Cinderella through her stepsister. As in Wicked, where we learn how Elphaba became the Wicked Witch of the West, in Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister we see the reasons why Cinderella's stepsisters & stepmother are so mean & ugly toward her. There is always more than one side to every story. Maybe we judged them too harshly.

Mirror, Mirror is Maguire's retelling of Snow White. Rather than just your garden variety evil witch, Maguire decides to include the Borgias as the evil in the story. And there are no Disney dwarfs in this story! It's a quick read that pulls in some history of Tuscany in the 16th century. Just don't expect it to be like Snow White at all.

What-the-Dickens: The Story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy is another short novel by Maguire. It's part children's book, part adult book, but completely unique. It's actually a story inside a story. The book is narrated by Gage, an English teacher who is telling the story of What-the-Dickens to his cousins during a storm. What-the-Dickens is a skibberee, or as we call them - a tooth fairy. He soon finds others like himself in colonies hidden from human sight. There are even wars between opposing colonies of these tooth fairies. I liked this book, not only because it was a quick read, but because it gave an answer to the question I've always wondered: What does the tooth fairy do with all those teeth??

So, in this Christmas season, if you have friends who like fairy tales and fantasy, pick up any of Gregory Maguire's books. The short skip away from reality is a fun trip with any of these novels.