Hannah Barnaby

. (Starting Small). Sept. 2025. 40p. Tr $14.99. ISBN 9781464224980. COPY ISBN K-Gr 2–A diverse cast of people and animals adorn the pages of this poem, which traces a pine tree’s various stages of growth. An important theme is the many benefits the tree provides to animals and people, portraying the tree as both shelter and a food source. Although it makes no direct mention of the holiday, the poem ends by connecting the pine tree to the Christmas tree.

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas By Clement C. Moore Illustrated by P.J. Lynch Walker Books November 2023, pp32, £7.99 9781529504354 Reading age: 3+ years A beautiful retelling of this much-loved Christmas poem. Readers follow St Nicholas’s arrival and departure, delivering presents on Christmas eve to everyone in a small snow-covered village. Any settings looking to explore traditional Western stories attached to Christmas will find this a lovely addition to their classrooms.

Caldecott medalist Klassen’s signature style is brought to bear on a Tyrolean tale imbued with equal parts comfort and creepiness. As the story begins, we meet Otilla, a young tan-skinned girl on the run from her old life, who stumbles upon a large house with a single occupant: a talking skull. The two strike up an immediate friendship, and when the skull confesses that a headless skeleton chases him every night, Otilla is determined to come to his aid.