Hurry! Hurry! Have you heard?

PreS-Gr 1-After a newborn baby in a stable smiles, a small bird spreads the news of his birth throughout the countryside, and all sorts of woodland animals come to welcome the infant. He coos with glee, and the animals fall asleep all around him as his mother sings a lullaby. Although neither the baby nor his mother is named in the simple rhyming text, one assumes it is Baby Jesus. Anachronisms aside (the snowy, forested countryside; a mother looking more like a 19th-century Dutch peasant than a young woman of Galilee; a tortoise crawling through the snow), the gouache paintings have huge appeal-no young child will be able to resist the three kittens in mittens or the gift-bearing bugs wearing hats and scarves. Bethlehem this is not, but the story remains the same. Buy it if you are looking for sweet and cheerful books for holiday sharing.-Eva Mitnick, Los Angeles Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Have you heard? Notable new Nativity stories are hard to find, but this satisfying effort from two talented pros will please both younger children and the adults reading to them. The short, rhyming text offers polished verses with just four lines per page or spread, with a bouncy rhythm and perfect rhyming pairs. The story begins with the discovery by three kittens and a chickadee of a special baby, lying on straw in a stable. The bird flies off to tell the other animals to hurry over to see the new baby, and in turn more creatures of all sorts march along through the snow to meet the baby. After their loud welcoming noises, the unnamed mother sings a lullaby to soothe her baby, and the calm, pleasing ending to the story shows the baby, all the animals and even the blue-robed mother sound asleep. Young readers will delight in noticing that the three kittens are wearing striped mittens and that the slow tortoise bringing up the rear of a line of animals is preceded by a quick-footed hare. Kids will be in a hurry to hear it again. (Picture book. 2-6) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

PreS-Gr 1 –After a newborn baby in a stable smiles, a small bird spreads the news of his birth throughout the countryside, and all sorts of woodland animals come to welcome the infant. He coos with glee, and the animals fall asleep all around him as his mother sings a lullaby. Although neither the baby nor his mother is named in the simple rhyming text, one assumes it is Baby Jesus. Anachronisms aside (the snowy, forested countryside; a mother looking more like a 19th-century Dutch peasant than a young woman of Galilee; a tortoise crawling through the snow), the gouache paintings have huge appeal–no young child will be able to resist the three kittens in mittens or the gift-bearing bugs wearing hats and scarves. Bethlehem this is not, but the story remains the same. Buy it if you are looking for sweet and cheerful books for holiday sharing.–Eva Mitnick, Los Angeles Public Library