Christmas books for the kiddies + a give-away

We have a lot of favorites of course, and we add new books each year. This year Harper Collins sent me some books to check out, and we are giving a hearty thumbs up and Flaum girl stamp of approval to these four. It’s early for this stuff, I know! But with Thanksgiving next week and wanting to share our recommendations in plenty of gifting time (should you want to find one of these books for yourself or a kid in your life!) I’m going to go ahead and share now. First off, I’m a big fan of hardback kids books especially for holiday reading. On a very superficial level, they’re lovely to display on a table or line up on a shelf. On a more practical level- they hold up really well over the years! It has become a habit of ours to read a Christmas or holiday story daily from the day after Thanksgiving through New Years usually – and often we end up reading more than one. Here’s more information about the four new books being added to our shelf this year –

Charlie and the Christmas Kitty is my personal favorite. Written by the Pioneer Woman herself, it’s the story of Charlie, and well, a Christmas kitty! I love the soft illustration style and my girls are nuts about all things dog – so it was a big hit and will stay on our Christmas book table all season long and be read often. I hope that we have many ranch adventures from Ree Drummond to come – my girls adore reading Charlie’s stories.

Mary Engelbreit’s Nutcracker is one I actually picked up at Target just the other day because Elizabeth loves Nutcrackers, I thought this was a fun illustrated version of the story, and I wanted another version of the tale (with a bright fun feel) as well.

Berenstain Bears’ Old-Fashioned Christmas is another fun one. It has been a while since the girls watched the show, but they do love to read the adventures of these bears now that they are able to read books themselves. This is one that they had a lot of fun with – and I suspect will read together all season long.

Pete the Cat Saves Christmas is the final of this quartet – and the girls were really excited to see him! They love Pete the cat, and I like that Pete appeals to both boys and girls (he’s always a bit hit at reading day in Kindergarten).

All four have the Flaum girl stamp of approval, and of course now my girls are more anxious than ever to dig out our Christmas boxes from the garage where the rest of our Christmas books reside! I’m putting all that off a while longer, though this week you can find me shopping + wrapping + preparing to ship off all Christmas gifts that require a trip to the post office. My personal goal each year is to never, ever, for any reason have to stand in line at the post office after Thanksgiving!!

With that, I leave you with one final thing – an early Christmas gift for one of you! Harper Collins sent me an extra copy of My Brave Year of Firsts by Jamie Lee Curtis, and if you would like to be entered to win it, simply leave a comment on this post for your chance to win. (Note: if you’re reading via email you will need to visit www.mayflaum.com and leave a comment on this posting)

I really enjoyed this book, as did my girls as we read about this girl’s year of triumph and failure, good and bad, and all around brave way of facing the world and experiencing all kinds of firsts. I adore the illustration style (illustration is something I wish more adult books had! I love pretty pictures!), and the overall lesson of the book too. The girls loved that the book was funny and they really related to a lot of things about it – which is always cool.

I will draw a winner for this book next Tuesday the 20th and notify the winner via email (as well as post it at the bottom of this post).

52 thoughts on “Christmas books for the kiddies + a give-away”

  3. My kids love Pete the Cat, too! They love listening to the audio for all of them too.
    Thanks for the chance to win the book!

  4. I love Christmas books and reading to my grand-kids. My youngest grand-daughter would love the giveaway book. Thanks for the chance.

  5. With a granddaughter that is 6 and two new ones – would love this new book. Also love the reading Christmas stories every day!

  6. What a great book! And Jamie Lee Curtis’ childrens books are so fun. Thanks for the opportunity.

  7. WOW – what a wonderful giveaway. This will make one very special person very very happy! Thank YOU.

  9. Charlie and the Christmas Kitty is on my shopping list already, but I’ll have to check the others out, too. Thanks for the opportunity to win a cute new book for my grand-daughter!

  10. I recently bought a Pete the Cat rocks his school shoes for my son’s Kindergarten class. Thanks so much for the opportunity to win a great children’s book. I thouroughly enjoy reading time with my son.

  11. I collect children’s books so I can read them to my great nieces and nephews. We always have a great time during the holidays.

  12. I love this list of books. I always need new suggestions for holiday presents for the little ones. This will make a great present for a family on my list this year.

    Thank you for this opportunity.

  13. Would love to start a tradition of reading to my grandchildren preceding the Christmas Holidays. My husband had been ill and it would raise his spirits to hear the giggles of excitement from Derek and Jocelyn. Derek will want to read some too!

    Thanks for the book selection and the chance to win!

  14. Wow! These look great! We have read other Jamie Lee Curtis books and love them.
    Thanks for the giveaway! PS I love it when you look back on older scrapbook pages and talk about how you
    May or may not change them! 🙂

  15. Love these Christmas books too! Thanks for a chance to win Jamie Lee Curtis’ book as I think my daughter and I could so relate to it!

  16. Even though he is only 3 months old I read to my grandson everyday(he lives with us) and I am going to buy the books with the cats Charlie and Pete, we have 5 cats. I want to have 25 books wrapped by Dec. 1st so he will have a new one read to him each day! Thanks May for the chance to win! I think Jamie’s book about first is so fitting as this is a year of Coden’s first too!

  18. Thank you so much for the recommendations. I really want to start the tradition of reading Christmas books with my daughter, we have a ton of books, but very few are Christmas. Jamie’s book looks like a blast! I am sure my 5yr old daughter would get a kick out of it.

  20. As grandmother to 14 loves this would be a great addition to our Christmas reading books. Thanks for the chance to win a copy!

  22. This sounds like a fun book. We are hugh readers and love, love, love books. Thanks for the giveaway.

  23. Love your favorites. I just gave my niece Jamie Lee Curtis’ book about being 5. She loves it. Would love to win your giveaway for our baby on the way.

  24. I have really missed having time to read my favorite blogs, but it looks like I stopped by here on the right day. Actually I think every day is the right day for a May Flaum Blog stop. I am always looking for new books for my grandkids and think My Brave Year of First would be an excellent choice for a couple of my granddaughters. I too am trying to get my shopping done as this will be the first year my daughter’s family will be far away from us at Christmas. We have been so lucky for so many years (23) to have all of our grandchildren with us at Christmas, but daughter and family moved to another state, and it looks like we will not be together this year (now my tears are falling once again). I guess I shall wait until you draw a name, and then check out Barnes and Nobel. Thanks for the chance and the suggestion.

  25. I always love your book recommendations. DS’ birthday is November 25 so I always give him a Christmas books for his birthday each year

  26. After reading this, I am heading out to find these books. Hope to win this one though. It’s a great tradition and will start it with my grandkids this year. Thanks for the chance to win, May!

  28. My daughter just read Pete the cat Saves Christmas to me and my grandson. What a hoot! Thanks for a chance to win Jamie’s book.

  29. I have a friend who is struggling right now and I would love to win this for her little boy. He will be getting a small Christmas this year and it would be so nice for him to receive. Thanks for sharing and giving us the opportunity to win.

  31. We recently cleaned out my 18 year old son’s closet finding many of his old favorite holiday books. We read holiday books like you from Thanksgiving to New Years. He is still an avid reader. There’s just nothing better than reading to your child everyday. My son’s favorite response when he was 1 – 2 after my reading a book to him was “agin mommy, agin”. Now I’m getting teary. But I have a grandson now to read to…my step-daughter’s son:)

  33. We LOVE the Berenstain Bears around here!! My daughter is 6 and still watches it every day. (She is actually watching right now!) We have many BB books, but not the Old Fashioned Christmas. I will have to add it to our collection!

  34. My grand-daughter would love this book! And so would I! She’s six and already reading on her own. I always include books as Christmas gifts for her. This would make a wonderful addition!

  35. Thanks for the suggestions on Christmas books….my granddaughters are coming here for Christmas and I would love to have some books to read to them at night. Thanks for the chance to win one.

  36. Thanks for the chance to win a fantastic book. I would love to win it so I can send it to my granddaughters. Also thanks for reminding me that I need to buy a book for my grandchildren as every Christmas they get a book from Grandma. A tradition I had started with their dad.

  37. Sounds like a fun book, I’m sure my sweet grandchildren and my dear DIL would love this. Thanks for the chance. Great ideas for books they might enjoy.

  38. This would be great to get us started on our new tradition of 1 Christmas Book a day until December 25th. Thanks for the chance to win.

  40. Love the book reviews. We also collect and enjoy Crhistmas stories. It is such a fun tradition. Thanks for the give away and Happy Holidays!

  42. I can’t wait to check out all these books! I LOVE new books. It gets old reading the same books over and over again. And I love Mary Engelbriet!! Thanks a million.

  44. I was just reading about Jamie Lee Curtis’s new book and wanted to get it for my granddaughter. How cool that your girls liked it! That’s always a recommendation… would love to win it, and thanks for the opportunity! Good luck with the forging ahead thing–I have just worked my way through Laundry Mountain, cooking and bill-paying next on the list!

  45. this books sounds like a perfect one for my 6 yr. old that doesn’t like to try new things! 🙂

  46. What adorable books! My Niece loves books. I’ll have to get some of these for her for Christmas. I saw Jamie Lee Curtis on Jay Leno and she talked about her new book. Sounds like a good one. 🙂

  49. My Brave Year of Firsts well I’ll be checking out that book next time I’m at the store. It sounds adorable and I live that the main charger is female an extra perk. Thanks for the chance to win!

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