Tag Karin Celestine

A House for Christmas Mouse / The Lightbringers / Magnificent Mabel and the Christmas Elf

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A House for Christmas Mouse
Rebecca Harry
Nosy Crow

On a snowy Christmas Eve an excited Mouse arrives at Treetop Forest in search of somewhere to call home – somewhere cosy and warm, with food and friends.

Coming upon a little rabbit outside his burrow she knows she must stop and help him light a fire within and so she does. She also stops to assist Fox in his cake making

and Bear with hanging up Christmas decorations, but having done so it’s almost sundown and Mouse still hasn’t found her new home.

Suddenly a gust of wind sends her tumbling into the deep snow and when she gets up, there before her is something that might just be the perfect place to make her home. On closer inspection it seems far from perfect though, so off she goes to search for leaves to make a bed. As she looks, who should come hurrying by but Bunny, followed soon after by Fox and then bear, each carrying something with them.

Where are they going and why?

With its wintry woodland setting and sparkly touches, Rebecca Harry’s lovely gentle tale of kindness repaid is just right for sharing with the very young this festive season.

The Lightbringers
Karin Celestine
Graffeg

This is the first of a new four book series, Tales of the Turning Year. With a combination of folklore and nature the author weaves an uplifting, hopeful story that retells an ancient renewal tale found in various parts of the world in honour of the winter solstice. Assuredly during this current covid lockdown we would all welcome a visit from The Lightbringers – small beings that gather embers and put them into their seed lanterns.

Karin explains how the seasons change as the earth breathes, with a particular focus on the increasing darkening with the approach of December 21st, the winter solstice – a turning point that heralds the spring and longer, lighter days.

Her words are simple but impactful, accompanying her atmospheric, beautifully composed photographic tableaux of the natural world populated by her felted animals, particularly the Lightbringers led by Hare – the caller. With its reassuring final, ‘The light will always return because it is guarded by small beings and they are steadfast in their dark’ this is a book to share and be cheered by in these dark days.

For new solo readers is

Magnificent Mabel and the Christmas Elf
Ruth Quayle, illustrated by Julia Christians
Nosy Crow

Mabel of Rabbit Riot fame returns to relate three further episodes in which she demonstrates her magnificence. In the first we find our young narrator in the sweetest of moods as she unearths her Christmas Elf from the box of decorations. She tries to get her classmate Edward into the Christmas spirit too but without much success; but she’s more successful in allowing her naughty little elf get her into big trouble over Christmas presents.

In the second story Mabel tries her very best to befriend a new boy and also finds out that once in a while school can be really interesting.

It’s toddler-minding that gets our young heroine into a tizzy in the final episode, and that’s after she’s declared that looking after toddlers is ‘easy and fun’. Really – Even cousin William?…

Huge entertainment from such a delightful character: Ruth Quayle really does appear to have the ability to see things from the viewpoint of six-year-olds, and Julia Christians’ black and white illustrations are a spirited delight.

Helping Hedgehog Home / Grotwig the Goblin

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Helping Hedgehog Home
Karin Celestine
Graffeg

This is the ninth adventure of Karin Celestine’s Celestine and the Hare series in which friendship, fun and kindness are the essence. The characters are little felt animals, particularly the Water Vole family comprising Bertram who likes sewing, his gardening lover dad Bert, Grandpa Burdock a nature expert who makes others laugh with his silliness, Granny Dandelion, fixer extraordinaire and Bertram’s mum Beatrice, explorer and inventor.

When a hedgehog in a hot air balloon crashes into the pond while Grandpa Burdock is investigating it for possible newcomers, he learns that the prickly creature has been shut out of her log pile home in the garden next door on account of a new fence. Now her balloon has burst and Hedgehog has no way of getting back.

While she refreshes herself with tea and bramble biscuits, Grandpa’s head buzzes with ideas for getting their visitor home. As his drawings of possible contraptions get ever more dangerous-looking,

Granny has been otherwise occupied, but when she appears on the scene and learns of Hedgehog’s plight, she too gets busy to find a solution.
Her workshop resounds with sawing and hammering and before long Granny reveals something that sends Hedgehog’s heart soaring with happiness …

This super-sweet altruistic tale bubbles over with kind thoughts and deeds; with a papier-mâché hot air balloon making activity and information about hedgehogs and how to help them at the end, it’s a delightfully playful, warm-hearted book for sharing with little humans.

Grotwig the Goblin
John Swannell
John Swannell Studios

‘Where’s Wally?’ and ‘a needle in a haystack’ sprung to mind on opening this photographic book, even though there’s not a haystack in sight.

Narrated in rather creaky corny rhyme by goblin, Grotwig, we share in his ramblings through the countryside: ramblings that, at different times of the year take him, as we see in Swannell’s photographs of topiary, pine and mixed deciduous woods, dry stone walls and hedgerows, ancient Yews and Oaks,

moorland hills and byways, and tranquil lakes, through all kinds of terrain.

There are times when the goblin asks readers to find him (with the aid of a magnifier housed in a pocket on the inside front cover) in the photos, This makes us slow right down and look closely at each of the rural landscapes. In itself, that is a good thing: the photographs are lovely and the peaceful scenes well worth paying attention to,

reminding this reviewer of some of the walks taken around the Gloucestershire countryside.

Children are increasingly pressurised and tend to seek escape on screens rather than going outdoors. A book like this might help to tempt them to do the latter and although they won’t encounter any goblins, there’s nature’s magic aplenty to discover in the great outdoors.