The parents with ‘Snowflake’ their snowchild. Photo: From The Barefoot Book of Mother and Daughter Tales.
Magical stories
Trish Carn heard from Natalie and Louise Solon and Isla Kirby about three books for Christmas
The Tear Thief, The Greatest Gift and The Barefoot Book of Mother and Daughter Tales are three recent releases by Barefoot Books.
Our First Day school at Finchley is blessed with two sisters, Natalie, eight years old, and Louise, aged five. The Friend gave them the first two books to review, with the help of their mother. On The Tear Thief their mother writes: ‘This is a strange, magical story. As I read it to the kids I wondered how they would respond to it – it seemed rather sad to me – but they were absolutely entranced. They loved the descriptions the author, Carol Ann Duffy, used.’ Natalie said the descriptions made her feel as if she was there, in the book. She particularly liked the way the child in the story became aware of the Tear Thief and how the Tear Thief went around gathering tears from children to make the moon shine. The girls requested the book repeatedly and listened again and again to the CD that was enclosed with the book. ‘Verdict – definitely recommended!’
The Greatest Gift: The Story of the Other Wise Man by Susan Summers is a thought-provoking re-telling of the tale by Victorian writer Henry Van Dyke. Natalie and Louise’s mother writes that ‘this story is about the fourth wise man, Artaban, who also saw the star rising but – for various reasons – was unable to accompany the other three wise men to offer their gifts at the manger in Bethlehem. As I read it to them, I became totally absorbed in the story and with all the different events that prevented Artaban from joining with the others. However, the children were less engaged with this story and struggled to find positive things to say about it.’ But to her mother’s surprise, when the First Day school lesson looked at the story of the three wise men, Natalie described the fourth wise man to the teachers showing that she had been quite involved in the story.
The third book, The Barefoot Book of Mother and Daughter Tales written by Josephine Evetts-Secker, I gave to my almost nine-year-old granddaughter, Isla, to read and then tell me what she thought. After leaving the book with her for two weeks, I telephoned to ask her opinion. She described in great detail two of her favourites, ‘Snowflake’, the story of man and woman who made a snowchild to keep them company and ‘The girl and her godmother’. Isla liked the beautiful colours in the illustrations. When I asked if her mother had read it with her, she replied slightly indignantly that she read it by herself before she went to bed! The book contained a wide range of stories from a variety of sources, such as a Greek myth, the Biblical story of Ruth and Naomi and lesser-known Chinese and Iroquois tales. While this book also had an enclosed CD, Isla did not talk about using it so I suspect she was happier reading it herself.
