Book Review: We Believe in Christmas

We Believe in Christmas. Karen Kingsbury. Illustrated by Dan Brown. 2008. Zondervan. 40 pages.

We believe in Christmas and the message of the star. 

We believe in Christmastime whatever age you are.

And so let's look for Christmas now; it might be very near--

as close as finding Jesus Christ in what we see and hear.

Then when we talk of wondrous awe,

no matter what we see,

let's think back in wondrous awe, and

there will Christmas be.

And if we speak of readiness and wrappings red and green,

imagine getting ready then, and there will Christmas be.

Karen Kingsbury's picture book, We Believe in Christmas, is incredibly awkward; her language, very unnatural. It's not that the message is bad--it's not--it's that the rhythm and rhyme of the book--if you can call it rhythm and rhyme--is so off, so unnatural, so horrible, that the message gets lost. The message. To me, it brought back the song "Keep Christmas With You." Of course, the book has a spiritual emphasis to it--finding ways to remember Jesus, to remember the real reason for the season. But the sentiment is largely the same, I think.

The illustrations are so much better than the text. They are not awkward or unnatural. But can nice illustrations save a book--make it worth reading? Probably not.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible