The Stable Rat and Other Christmas Poems

Julia Cunningham made history in 1965 with the publication of her groundbreaking book Dorp Dead! Among her many honors are the Christopher Medal for Come to the Edge and a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor for The Flight of the Sparrow. Her The Treasure Is the Rose was a National Book Award Finalist. Julia Cunningham lives in Santa Barbara, California.

Gr. 3-6, younger for read aloud. The author of the acclaimed Dorp Dead (1965) and The Treasure Is the Rose (1974) has composed a beautiful suite of poems telling the Christmas story. The language is muscular, precise, powerful; the poems are rhymed or not. The voices are those of the animals or observers. "Why did three shepherds usher in six sheep / to form a wall of warmth across the door? / How did they know that child so deep asleep . . . / would wake a world?" Or in "A Child's Song for a Child": "Be my flower / Be my star. / Lend me a breath / Of what you are. / Partaking of the rose / I might / Candle myself / A little light." From the stable rat's epiphany to the animals' hymn to joy, Cunningham rings changes like handbells, making a familiar story glisteningly new. Lobel's paintings are full of color and rhythm: sheep, oxen, camels as well as angels, shepherds, and wise men are patterned in bold swathes. Stars, flowers, drapery, all form sinuous lines and tapestry motifs. A glorious addition to the Christmas canon. John Peters
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved