‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirr- wait, people were reading books and sipping hot chocolate?
Sorry, Clement Clarke Moore, but in Iceland your poem will have to wait.
Thousands of families there still celebrate Jólabókaflód, the Yule book flood, on Christmas Eve. They will exchange books after dinner and then read them together, as a family, until bedtime.
This unique holiday tradition is just one of the many that have been captured in books that line the shelves at the Worlds of Words Center on campus at the University of Arizona.
Worlds of Words is a resource center with children’s literature, including books that bring various holiday traditions to life.
Opened in 2007, located in the College of Education and appropriately nicknamed WOW, Worlds of Words is a resource center for students and teachers engaged with children and children’s literature.
It’s also a perfect place to browse picture books that bring our various holiday traditions to life.
Young readers can easily find books about Christmas, Solstice, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Diwali and Eid, and Director Kathy Short was happy to provide a holiday sampler last week.
She began with “The Christmas Book Flood,” a picture book by Emily Kilgore and Kitty Moss that captures the spirit of Jólabókaflód.
“It’s the story of a young girl who is searching for the perfect books to give her loved ones for Christmas,” Short said. “It’s a wonderful story, and there are author notes that explain the history of the book flood. My favorite part? While the family is reading in front of the fire, they’re eating chocolate bars and sipping hot cocoa. What could be better than that?”
Pictured is a page from the book “The Christmas Book Flood.”
Jólabókaflód first emerged during World War II, when paper was one of the few Icelandic commodities that was not being rationed. With books still plentiful and inexpensive, people began to exchange books with family and friends as Christmas presents.
Be it cause or effect, Iceland now has one of the highest literacy rates in the world at 99%. The average Icelander reads eight books a year, and 93% of them read at least one.
A very different holiday tradition is explained in “An Anishinaabe Christmas“ by Wab Kinew and Erin Hill.
In this book, we follow a child who will be spending the holidays with her Anishinaabe grandparents and relatives on the reservation in the upper Midwest.
“The child is worried that Santa may not find her if she’s not at home,” Short said, “so her parents tell her ‘home’ isn’t just where you live. It’s where you’re from, and for them the year-end holiday is the Winter Solstice. The Anishinaabe celebrated the solstice, and exchanged gifts then. It wasn’t until the settlers came that they even knew about Christmas.”
Worlds of Words Director Kathy Short poses with “An Anishinaabe Christmas.”
Light, Short said, is a constant theme in holiday books.
“The House Without Lights“ by Reem Faruqi and Nadia Alam is narrated by a house that feels left out when seeing other houses being decorated for Diwali, Hanukkah and Christmas. Not to worry. In late March, its lights are bright and the food is plentiful when its Islamic family marks the end of Ramadan by celebrating Eid.
“The Light from My Menorah“ by Robin Heald and Andrea Blinick is a picture book that follows the light from a girl’s menorah as it illuminates various celebrations around the world.
A number of holiday books honor cross-cultural families creating their own holiday traditions, Short said.
One of them is “Nisha’s Just-Right Christmas Tree“ by Susan Lynn Meyer, Jaya Mehta and Parvati Pillai. “In this book, we see how the Hindu father from India and the Christian mom from the United States have combined their own traditions to make new ones,” Short explained.
“Dreams of Green“ by Mariel Jungkunz and Monica Paola Rodriquez explores the Three Kings tradition brought to the New World by Spanish explorers. The book features a young girl who was raised in Puerto Rico and now finds herself living in cold, snowy Ohio.
“Part of the Three Kings tradition involves picking fresh green grass and leaving it out for the camels,” Short explained. “How will the Three Kings find her if there’s no fresh grass? Somehow, they find her anyway.”
Then there is “A World of Cookies for Santa“ by M. E. Furman and Susan Gal, a picture book cookbook that follows Santa on his Christmas Eve journey around the world. At each stop, he is welcomed with a plate of cookies. This book describes the treats and provides the recipes so children can try them at home.
“These books are beautiful, I think, because they all try to see our neighbors and their traditions through the eyes of children,” Short said. “It’s important for kids to see themselves in these stories. Maybe some kids will learn something about a friend he or she knows at school. I just wish there was a way every child could receive a new book every year. What a good thing that would be.”
FOOTNOTES
Worlds of Words Director Kathy Short will bring a little bit of Iceland to Tucson Tuesday night. She will be reading aloud to children and adults during Christmas Eve services at her church. “Picture books are for everyone, not just children,” she said.
National Book Award winner Jason De León, Booker Prize winner Samantha Harvey, Sandra Brown and Hampton Sides and are among the 300 authors who have accepted invitations to the 16th annual Tucson Festival of Books March 15-16. To see the full author list, visit tucsonfestivalofbooks.org.
The University of Arizona Poetry Center is now closed for its annual holiday break. It will reopen on Monday, Jan. 7.
All Pima County Public Library branches will close at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Christmas Eve, and open again Thursday morning.
