A Christmas book to close out the year ~
I am back from the Christmas holiday vacation and trying to wrap some things up around the house before I have to return to work, but I wanted to check in and see how everybody is doing ~ haven't a prayer of catching up on the Flist, but I'll try to catch up as best I can. Christmas was lovely this year and I received some very nice gifts. I feel very blessed.
Among the many books I received for Christmas this year (and wow, I did receive many!), I wanted to share with you this beautiful picture book illustrated by P.J. Lynch. It's a telling of the classic Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski. I love the simplicity of this Christmas story: the gloomy woodcarver, the lovely young widow, the nativity figurines. And it has the elements of a really good sappy Christmas romance: lonely people who find each other; brought together by Christmas. I also love that the miracle in this one is so very ordinary, almost. No intervening angels or magic at work here ~ just the quiet interior change of an icy heart thawing out. In so many ways it's a greater miracle, I think. I don't have preferences when it comes to this sort of thing with Christmas stories, but I think I like this story all the more for being so understated.
This particular edition is exquisite. The pictures are warm and luminous and the expressions on the people's faces very real and very nuanced. I only wished that the picture of Jonathan Toomey carving Mary and the baby Jesus showed a little more glimmer in the eyes. He's described as crying in the moment that immediately proceeds this, so he just looked to me to be too dry-eyed. But that's getting really picky considering how pretty the rest of it is. This is definitely a joy to read. Nothing especially spectacular in the format to point out; just straight up fabulous in its overall content and design.
More from me later! I have all manner of other irons in the fire to share with you.
: D
from LookingLand.com
Nucleus LiveJournal Plugin © Evgeny Lykhin
Among the many books I received for Christmas this year (and wow, I did receive many!), I wanted to share with you this beautiful picture book illustrated by P.J. Lynch. It's a telling of the classic Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski. I love the simplicity of this Christmas story: the gloomy woodcarver, the lovely young widow, the nativity figurines. And it has the elements of a really good sappy Christmas romance: lonely people who find each other; brought together by Christmas. I also love that the miracle in this one is so very ordinary, almost. No intervening angels or magic at work here ~ just the quiet interior change of an icy heart thawing out. In so many ways it's a greater miracle, I think. I don't have preferences when it comes to this sort of thing with Christmas stories, but I think I like this story all the more for being so understated.
This particular edition is exquisite. The pictures are warm and luminous and the expressions on the people's faces very real and very nuanced. I only wished that the picture of Jonathan Toomey carving Mary and the baby Jesus showed a little more glimmer in the eyes. He's described as crying in the moment that immediately proceeds this, so he just looked to me to be too dry-eyed. But that's getting really picky considering how pretty the rest of it is. This is definitely a joy to read. Nothing especially spectacular in the format to point out; just straight up fabulous in its overall content and design.
More from me later! I have all manner of other irons in the fire to share with you.
: D
from LookingLand.com
Nucleus LiveJournal Plugin © Evgeny Lykhin