Christmas Eve Blizzardby Andrea Vlahakis; illustrated by Emanuel Schongut
My mother loved birds, and winter was her favorite season for bird-watching because they landed right on our deck and peeped at us. She wasn’t much on crafts, but she’d make bird feeders by cutting holes in empty milk cartons and tying them to the deck posts. The Cardinals were everyone’s favorite: they were easy to spot, their vivid crimson making them brighter than blue jays, if not as noisy.
The birds have another fan in a boy named Nicholas in this story. He watches anxiously from a window as a sick Cardinal falls off a branch of an apple sapling during a blizzard on Christmas Eve. He braves the elements to rescue the bird, which he and his grandfather nurse back to health. The critter even takes priority over opening Christmas presents. Nicholas’ charity is one day rewarded with a small miracle every Christmas: the apple tree appears to burst with red fruit as Cardinals flock to its branches.
Although not a bilingual book, the boy and his grandfather are Hispanic and the language peppered with Spanish phrases, which are translated for easy reading. Like most books from Sylvan Dell Publishing, there’s also a host of intriguing and easy activities in back, such as making bird feeders from pine cones and peanut butter. I bet Mom would be impressed.
Rating: *\*\
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