Poetry Picture Book: At Christmas Time

Title: At Christmas Time
Author: Valerie Worth
Publication: 1992

This poetry book was particularly fitting because it is about the onset of the Christmas season to the end. The book takes you through different poems about Christmas time, like the day's becoming shorter, Christmas decorations, Christmas trees, Wise Men, Angels, Santa Clause, etc. The book ends with a Spring poem, showing the change of season and the wait for the holiday season the next year. Each poem is super cute and short, giving the reader a good idea of the Western traditions of Christmas. This book definitely gets you in the Christmas spirit and is a great one to read around the holiday season.

This book is written to a Western audience and therefore, as a teacher I must be careful to present a book that only shows Christianity. I think this is a good book to have so that whether or not a student is a practicing Christian, he or she can read this book to understand what the Christmas holiday in America is like. This book gives a great overview of the different elements that make up the holiday season and therefore is educational for those who may not practice Christianity. This book is also go for students who celebrate Christmas because they are able to see some of the elements of the Christmas season wrapped up into pretty poems. This will help them to see familiar things like presents, angels, or trees and be able to see how one can write poems about them. Reading this book will hopefully give them a better sense of poetry as a genre and broaden their horizons on how poetry can be written.