Christmas Day in the Morning

Pearl S. Buck is the author of many distinguished books for children and adults. She won the Child Study Association's Children's Book Award for The Big Wave, the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Good Earth, and in 1938 received the Nobel Prize for literature.

Gr. 3-6, younger for reading aloud. This inspiring story by a Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author is reissued for the first time since 1955 with the oil paintings by the artist of Fanny's Dream (1996). Buck invests a simple story with poetic dignity and teaches a bone-deep lesson about love. On Christmas, a middle-aged man remembers a holiday morning when he was 15 and his farm family was just scraping by. Having overheard a conversation in which his father proclaimed his love, the teenager decides to do something special for Dad. The boy gets up very early on Christmas morning and does all the milking before his father arises, discovering that that love makes labor light. Buehner's paintings enhance the story, capturing the deep blue-white of a snowy farmland, punctuated by golden light spilling from windows, a pool of light from the boy's lantern as he goes to the barn, and the simplicity of a turn-of-the-century farmhouse interior. A beautiful Christmas message, powerfully delivered. Connie Fletcher
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