Christmas Cookies: Bite-size Holiday Lessons
By Amy Krouse Rosenthal; illustrated by Jane Dyer
HarperCollins; $12.99
40 pp.; ISBN-13: 978-0060580247

Review by Amy Brozio-Andrews

Just in time for the holiday season, Amy Krouse Rosenthal is back with another charming book of life lessons for kids, lovingly illustrated by Jane Dyer. The book is structured in the same format as Cookies: Bite-size Life Lessons, each of the sentiments is conveyed with a distinctive holiday theme and all focus on the act of baking cookies.

From the anticipation of getting ready to bake cookies to all of the things that can go wrong (and right) with baking cookies, Rosenthal's book runs a gamut of emotions that are explained in a plainspoken way that's clearly understandable by young readers. For example, a child looking at an angular cookie is disappointed, "I tried to make it look like a star but it didn't turn out at all the way I expected."

Jane Dyer's cherubic children are accompanied by anthropomorphized animals like rabbits and cats in vintage-leaning fashions and tableaus. One girl stirring cookie batter wears a dotted kerchief while in another scene, the boys at a party are wearing short pants with their shirts and ties, paper chain garland in the background. Christmas Cookies: Bite-size Holiday Lessons is a great way to start a conversation with kids about the words that they may commonly hear throughout the holiday season but not really understand, like frustrated, perseverance, selfish, gratitude, gracious, believe, and appreciative. The book is a great conversation-starter and the explanations are simple without being condescending to young readers.

The book concludes with a recipe for Christmas cookies (with the typical baker-beware/adult supervision required warning included on the verso page of the book), perfect for starting your own family Christmas cookie-baking tradition.

Rosenthal is also the author of The Okay Book, and Little Pea, as well as Cookies: Bite-sized Life Lessons; if you liked those books, then you'll find lots to like in this book. Jane Dyer, who also illustrated Time for Bed and her own Little Brown Bear series, again shows off her signature style. While there is no set plot, the series of vignettes comes together cohesively into a sweet seasonal read that's perfect for sharing… maybe over a plate of cookies.