2012 Recommended Holiday Reading

Commissioner Stewart announces the K-12 Recommended Holiday Reading List which parents and educators can use to encourage students to continue reading during the holiday season. There are a variety of interesting books available to spark the interest, imagination and most of all the love of reading for children of all ages.

Elementary (Pre K – Grade 2)

• A New Coat for Anna - Harriet Ziefert
• The Best Christmas Pageant Ever - Barbara Robinson
• Inside Out Grandma ~ A Hanukkah Story - Joan Rothenberg
• The Polar Express - Chris Van Allsburg
• Feliz Navidad: Two Stories Celebrating Christmas - Jose Feliciano
• Biscuit Celebrates Hanukkah - Ayssa Satin Capucilli
• Las Posadas: An Hispanic Christmas Celebration - Diane Hoyt-Goldsmith
• A Kwanzaa Celebration Pop-up Book - Nancy Williams
• D Is for Dreidel: A Hanukkah Alphabet Book - Tanya Lee Stone
• Christmas Alphabet 10th Anniversary Edition [pop-up book] - Robert Sabuda
• Feliz Navidad: Two Stories Celebrating Christmas - Jose Feliciano, David Diaz (illus.)
• Festival of Lights: The Story of Hanukkah - Maida Silverman, Carolyn Ewing (illus.)
• Lanterns and Firecrackers: A Chinese New Year Story - Jonny Zucker, Jan Barger Cohen
• The Legend of the Poinsettia - Tomie dePaola
• Carlos, Light the Farolito - Jean Carlos Ciavonne
• A Hanukkah Treasury - Eric A. Kimmel
• Feliz Nochebuena, Feliz Navidad
• New Year's Day - Dana Meachen Rau
• Olive, the Other Reindeer - J. Otto Seibold
• Who's That Knocking on Christmas Eve? - Jan Brett (illus.)
• A Wish to Be a Christmas Tree - Colleen Monroe
• Mooseltoe - Margie Palatini
• Farolitos of Christmas – Rudolfo Anaya
• Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree - Robert Barry
• Anna's Wish - Friederike Rave
• Baby Polar Bears' Snow-Day - Michael Teitelbaum
• Houndsley and Catina and the Quiet Time - James Howe
• Jan Brett's Snowy Treasury - Jan Brett
• The Mitten - Retold by Jim Aylesworth
• Snowflakes - Martha E.H. Rustad
• Menorah Under the Sea - Esther Susan Heller
• Bella's Tree - Janet Russell
• The Biggest Christmas Tree Ever - Steven Kroll
• Christmas in Many Cultures - Martha E.H. Rustad
• Curious George Christmas Countdown - Tish Rabe
• A Piñata in a Pine Tree: A Latino Twelve Days of Christmas - Pat Mora
• The Snowy Day – Ezra Jack Keats
• A Wish to Be A Christmas Tree - Colleen Monroe
• Was That Christmas? - Hilary McKay
• What's Cooking, Jamela? - Niki Daly
• Llama Llama Holiday Drama - Anna Dewdneg
• My Two Holidays: A Hanukkah and Christmas Story - Danielle Novack
• Children Just Like Me: Celebrations! - Anabel Kindersley and Barnabas Kindersley
• Celebrate: A Book of Jewish Holidays - Judith Gross and Bari Weissman
• Thank you, World - Alice McGinty
• The Three Questions - Jon J. Muth
• D IS for Dragon Dance - Ying Chang Compestine

Elementary (Grades 3 – 5)

• Hurray For Three Kings’ Day! - Lori Marie Carlson
• Reindeer Crunch and other Christmas Recipes - Kristi Johnson
• Blizzards - Jenny Vaughan
• Carl's Snowy Afternoon - Alexandra Day
• Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins - Eric A. Kimmel
• Light the Lights! A Story about Celebrating Hanukkah and Christmas - Margaret Moorman
• The Velveteen Rabbit - Margery Williams
• Gift of the Magi - O. Henry
• Ramadan - Suhaib Hamaid Ghazi
• The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree: An Appalachian Story - Gloria Houston
• Seven Spools of Thread: A Kwanzaa Story - Angela Shelf Medearis
• Christmas Around the World - Mary Lankford
• Seven Candles for Kwanzaa - Andrea Davis Pinkney
• By the Hanukkah Light - Sheldon Oberman
• Latkes, Latkes, Good to Eat - Naomi Howland
• Seven Days of Kwanzaa - Angela Shelf Medearis
• Christmas House - Ann Turner
• Children of Christmas - Cynthia Rylant
• Prairie Winter - Bonnie Geisert
• Christmas in the Trenches - John McCutcheon
• O Christmas Tree - Vashanti Rahaman
• On Christmas Eve - Ann M. Martin
• A Child's Christmas in Wales - Dylan Thomas, Trina Schart Hyman, Illustrator
• The Jar of Fools - Eric A. Kimmel
• Four Sides, Eight Nights: A New Spin on Hanukkah - Rebecca Tova Ben-Zvi, Illustrated by Susannah Natti
• Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor - Lisa Kleypas

Middle School (Grades 6 – 8)

• 1621:  A New Look at Thanksgiving – Catherine O’Neill Grace; Sissee Brimberg
• William Bradford:  Plymouth’s Faithful Pilgrim – Gary D. Schmidt
• The Best Christmas Pageant Ever - Barbara Robinson
• Amazing Peace – Maya Angelou
• Feast of Lights – Ellen S. Jaffe
• Timothy Cratchitt’s Christmas Carol – Dale Powell, Charles Dickens
• The Christmas Box – Richard Paul Evans
• A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens, Dean Morrissey (illus.)
• Christmas Treasury: Heirloom Edition - Christian Birmingham
• Circle of Wonder: A Native American Christmas Story - N. Scott Momaday
• Hallelujah Handel - Douglas Cowling, Jason Walker (illus.)
• The Power of Light: Eight Stories for Hanukkah - Isaac Bashevis Singer, Irene Lieblich (illus.)
• Ramadan - Susan L. Douglass, Jeni Reeves (illus.)
• Seven Days of Kwanzaa - Angela Shelf Medearis
• A Kwanzaa Story: Or How One Gentleman Found His Way - Nancy Guthorn Harrington
• Hanukkah Lights: Stories of the Season - Harlan Ellison, Anne Roiphe, Elie Wiesel
• The Gift of the Magi and Other Stories - O. Henry
• Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem - Maya Angelou
• Truce: The Day the Soldiers Stopped Fighting – Jim Murphy
• Christmas With Ida Early – Robert Burch
• Papa’s Angles: A Christmas Story – Collin Wilcox Paxton and Gary Carden
• Dream Soul – Laurence Yep
• Angels and Other Stories – retold by Sue Stauffacher
• The Christmas story: told through paintings – Commentary by Richard Mühlberger
• Zlateh the goat, and other stories - Isaac Bashevis Singer
• Christmas After All: the Great Depression Diary of Minnie Swift - Kathryn Lasky
• The Stone Lamp: Eight Stories of Hanukkah through History - Karen Hesse
• The Bells of Christmas - Virginia Hamilton
• The Best Christmas Present in the World - Michael Foreman
• A Holiday Memory - Lauren Brooke
• My Brother's Hero - Adrian Fogelin

High School (Grades 9 – 12)

• The Special Guest - Lee Allen
• The Angel Doll - Jerry Bledsoe
• All Through the Night - Mary Higgins Clark
• Miracle on 34th Street - Valentine Davies
• A Different Kind of Christmas - Alex Haley
• A Cup of Christmas Tea - Tom Hegg
• The Christmas Cross - Max Lucado
• The Modern Magi - Carol Lynn Pearson
• The Christmas Tree - Julie Salamon
• The Christmas Wish - Richard Siddoway
• The Christmas Store - Ray Sipherd
• The Christmas Letters - Lee Smith
• Certain Poor Shepherds - Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
• A Stranger for Christmas - Carol Lynn Pearson
• The Complete Kwanzaa: Celebrating Our Cultural Harvest - D. Winbush Riley
• Hanukkah Lights: Stories of the Season - Harlan Ellison, Anne Roiphe, Elie Wiesel
• Recipes for Ramadan - Indrani Ibrahim
• Celebrating Ramadan - Diane Hoyt-Goldsmith, Lawrence Migdale
• The Story of the Trapp Family Singers - Maria Augusta Trapp, Maria Augusta Von Trapp
• A Christmas Memory, One Christmas and the Thanksgiving Visitor - Truman Capote
• It's a Wonderful Life - Stephen Cox
• Stories Behind the Great Traditions of Christmas - Ace Collins
• Kwanzaa: From Holiday to Every Day - Maitefa Angaza
• Angels and Other Strangers: Family Christmas Stories - Katherine Paterson
• Hanukkah Trivia: 150 Fun & Fascinating Facts About Hanukkah - Jennie Miller Helderman, Mary Caulkins
• A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition - Lee Mendelson, Bill Melendez
• A Christmas Treasury: Twelve Unforgettable Holiday Stories – L. Frank Baum
• Holidays Around the World: Celebrate Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr – Deborah Heiligman
• A Different Light: The Hanukkah Book of Celebration – Noam Zion
• Dash & Lily's Book of Dares – Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
• Call Me Mrs. Miracle – Debbie Macomber
• Today I Will: A Year of Quotes, Notes, and Promises to Myself – Jerry Spinelli Eileen Spinelli
• The Power of Light: Eight Stories for Hanukkah – Isaac Bashevis Singer
• Celebrate Christmas : With Carols, Presents, and Peace - Deborah Heiligman
• The Ten-year Century : Explaining the First Decade of the New Millennium - James Sutherland
• Christmas Remembered - Tomie dePaola
• Christmas Day in the Morning - Pearl S. Buck, Mark Buehner (Illustrator)
• The Christmas Truce - Malcolm Brown, Shirley Seaton
• The Tricksters - Margaret Mahy