The quiet joys of Christmas preparations and the day itself, with great sympathy for a child's perspective. I grew up with Lucy and Tom in the late Seventies and early Eighties, so revisiting the book now feels rather like looking at my own childhood Christmases, laid out in lovely thick gouache. A rubber in the shape of a dog and a ‘smart bow-tie on elastic’ for dad, a ‘comb in a case for Granny with A for Alison on it (because that’s Granny’s name)’ and best of all ‘a pen for Lucy which changes into different colours’. And be sure to check out my bio page to learn a little about me and the Picture Book/Chapter Book Calendars I sell on Etsy!

Shirley Hughes is a great loss to children’s literature and this, of all her books, seems to me one that will last. She wrote two novels for older children, Hero on a Bicycle , about a 13-year-old Italian boy during the occupation of Florence, and Whistling in the Dark , set during the Liverpool Blitz. Shirley Hughes was born in West Kirby, near Liverpool, in 1927, and studied fashion and dress design at Liverpool Art School, before continuing her studies at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford. In 1930s Liverpool, young Bronwen and Dylan find kindness from an unexpected source when they are frightened by what they think is a ghost on Christmas Eve. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

My boys found it inspirational--and pointed out that we did Christmas crackers earlier in the week rather than at Christmas dinner. Hughes has a lovely endearing style to her drawing - I will certainly be reading and collecting many other titles from her. Her books include the wordless picture book Up and Up , collection of rhymes and poems Out and About , and for the very young The Nursery Collection .

The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. She also collaborated with her daughter, Clara Vulliamy, on the Dixie O'Day series; which saw Shirley with an illustrator for the first time with Shirley writing the text and Clara creating the illustrations.It's the first Christmas book I've ever read that showed the children "posting" their letters to Santa by burning them in the fireplace. This wonderfully evocative Christmas book reminds me so vividly of my own childhood Christmases, with my mother making mince pies at the big wooden kitchen table and the Salvation Army playing Christmas carols. One of the loveliest things to do at Christmas is cuddle up and enjoy a good picture book together – and these classic stories have really stood the test of time.

The illustrations are so detailed and the story is very cute with hilariously accurate depictions of children’s emotions. Shirley Hughes is the illustrator of more than two hundred children’s books and has won many prestigious awards, including the Kate Greenaway Medal twice.

We talk about the differences in the way these children celebrate Christmas in England and they celebrate Christmas in the states. Shirley Hughes has won the Other Award, the Eleanor Farjeon Award, and the Kate Greenaway Medal for Illustration twice, for Dogger in 1977 and for Ella's Big Chance in 2003. I used to read it every Christmas to my children when they were young and now I'm reading it again to my grandchildren. Shirley Hughes’s illustrations have the same effect as discovering an old reel of cine film buried in the loft. Didn’t realize that until adulthood :) bought this book as soon as my daughter was born to read to her each Christmas season.