Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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Chagall meets Diego Rivera meets the masters of medieval illumination, 11 Dec 2007
Jane Ray's illustrations combine with text drawn from the always-resonant King James version of the Bible to tell the story of Christmas, starting with the Annunciation (that's in March, remember) and finishing with the return of the holy family to Nazareth after their flight to Egypt.
This is really a stunning book, and if you're stuck for a Christmas present, this could be it. The reading age is 4-8 years, but the illustrations are crammed with things to look at and talk about - animals, birds, fabulous patterns, figures doing everyday things in the background - and this means that reading it to a younger child (say, from eighteen months) becomes a voyage of fantastical discovery. Somehow, Ray has managed to imbue her illustrations with a sense of depth, and a weight of meaning that in my experience is rare among illustrators for children. And don't get me onto the subject of the colours - just think of the vital glow of viterous enamels.
Buy it. Read it every Advent, and I think you or your children will find something new in it every year. But try to get a hardback edition - sadly out of print but available, it seems, second-hand. Our paperback certainly won't see too many more Christmases!
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£4.49
