Celebrate Christmas: With Carols, Presents, and Peace

by Deborah Heiligman

December 25th is a day of peace and festivity, the culmination of a season of worldwide goodwill. Carol singers give voice to the joyful spirit, trees are decorated, and gifts exchanged between families and friends. A name-check of the gift-bearers awaited by children reflects the global nature of the Pere Noel in France, Santa Claus in America, La Befana in Italy, and the Three Kings of Hispanic cultures. With first-person narrative, informative back matter, and evocative photography, Celebrate Christmas is a rich historical and cultural resource for children.

National Geographic supports K-12 educators with ELA Common Core Resources.
Visit www.natgeoed.org/commoncore for more information.

Genres: Christmas, Picture Books, Nonfiction, Holiday, Childrens

32 pages, Hardcover

Published October 9, 2007

About the author

Deborah Heiligman has been writing for children since she worked at Scholastic News soon after college. Since then she has written more than thirty books for children and teens. Her books include picture books, both fiction and nonfiction, and young adult nonfiction and fiction. Some titles: Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith, a National Book Award finalist; The Boy Who Loved Math: The Improbable Life of Paul Erdos, a Cook Prize Winner and Orbis Pictus honor; Intentions, a Sydney Taylor Award winner, and a picture book series about Tinka the dog. Her latest book is Vincent and Theo: The van Gogh Brothers. For more information please visit www.DeborahHeiligman.com

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

So yes and for me personally, the best and most academically, intellectually useful (and also the most interesting) parts of Deborah Heiligman's Celebrate Christmas: With Carols, Presents, and Peace (aside from the aesthetically pleasant and colourful accompanying photographs which are truly very much international in scope and do brightly and eclectically depict and demonstrate the many different nuances and traditions of Christmas celebrations around the world) are the educational supplemental nuggets of information at the back of the book (especially the bibliographical lists as well as Nathan Humphrey's enlightening afterword), which I do consider very much not only as appreciated added bonuses but also that which makes Celebrate Christmas: With Carols, Presents, and Peace a definite three star book for me, as well as a more than adequate introduction to Christmas as a globally celebrated holiday.

For while the narrative proper of Celebrate Christmas: With Carols, Presents and Peace, while Deborah Heiligman's main text does indeed provide a basic and generally engaging, enlightening introduction to the Christmas season, without the above mentioned included supplemental details, I for one would most definitely not have really all that much enjoyed (and gotten all that much intellectual use out of) Celebrate Christmas: With Carols, Presents, and Peace, as in my opinion, there really should be a bit more of an in-depth discussion and analysis of the Nativity Story included (and its religious significances) and how what we now celebrate as Christmas is in many ways a combination and compilation of the New Testament accounts of Jesus Christ's birth and pagan winter/solstice traditions (which information, while indeed alluded to and briefly shown in the main part of Celebrate Christmas: With Carols, Presents and Peace is also and in my humble opinion textually simply thrown out there so to speak, is not as I would want and desire explained and discussed even remotely sufficiently).

But indeed and happily, Deborah Heiligman does then at least to and for me rather redeem Celebrate Christmas: With Carols, Presents and Peace in so far that much of the supplemental and additional information at the back is indeed both more interesting and also considerably more in-depth than the main narrational body of Celebrate Christmas: With Carols, Presents and Peace (with especially the bibliographical information and the explanatory afterword by Nathan Humphrey being like the icing on a cake for me, in particular since Humphrey's afterword does provide the religious analysis and discussion of the Nativity Story that I have found wanting in Deborah Heiligman's printed words, but then of course, said afterword is also rather densely academic and much more suitable for and to older children and adults).

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of my 3rdclasses was doing research and a student wanted to research Christmas. I found we hardly had any books on it in our collection for our younger students. This is one from National Geographic. It presents it in a very pictoral way for lower level readers. It has nice bold subtopics. I found this author writes a lot of informational books and will probably get more of them.

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good educational look at Christmas and its traditions around the world.

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

We read the Passover book in the same series, which was much richer is explaining the religious origin of the holiday; this book, by contrast, is lacking in discussion of the nativity story.

[Chrissy Shea Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

This presents the basic history of why Christmas is celebrated and how, across the world. I am not a fan of the author’s writing style: “We hear that…” (repeated for several paragraphs on various sub-topics). But overall the basics, both religious and non-religious, are covered. Useful for children or other low level reading.

[Herold Homeschool · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m giving it 4 only because I haven’t fact checked this book like I did with the Weird but True Christmas by Nat Geo kids, the call plantains banana trees and said people in India decorate them. I checked with my SIL from Kerala, India she said they do not.

[Erin Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a book I read with my 2nd graders during Social Studies is learning about Holidays around the world! It was very well written and held my students’ attention and the photographs were absolutely stunning!