Gift of the Christmas Cookie: Sharing the True Meaning of Jesus' Birth

by Dandi Daley Mackall

Overview

It’s the Christmas season during a time when people had little money to spend. Cookie jars held pennies, not Christmas cookies. So when Jack smells something delicious coming from the kitchen, he can’t believe his nose. Cookies! But his excitement turns to disappointment when he learns the cookies aren’t for him. Instead, Mother is baking them for the needy people at their church. While Jack helps roll out the dough, his mother tells him the legend of the Christmas cookie. In a captivating interplay of simple words and beautiful illustrations, The Legend of the Christmas Cookie tells a tender story of giving—not just cookies, but gifts of the heart that last forever.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780310737513
Publisher:	Zonderkidz
Publication date:	10/09/2012
Sold by:	HarperCollins Publishing
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	21 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Dandi Daley Mackall loves God, children, words, and animals. Her nearly 500 books for children and grown-ups have sold more than four million copies worldwide. She won the ECPA Christian Book Award for Best Children’s Book 2015 and multiple Mom’s Choice Awards, as well as ALA Best Book, NY Public Library Top Pick, Children’s Book Council Award of Excellence, and the Helen Keating Ott Award for Contributions to Children’s Literature. Her novel My Boyfriends’ Dogs is now a Hallmark Movie. Dandi writes from rural Ohio, where she lives with her family, including horses, dogs, cats, and an occasional squirrel, deer, or raccoon.

 

Editorial Reviews

K-Gr 2

It's the Depression, and Jack's father in away from the family, in search of work. On Christmas Eve, a wonderful aroma momentarily lifts Jack's spirits until he finds out that the cookies baking in the oven are for the needy. To ease his disappointment, Jack's mother tells him about the origin of Christmas cookies. During the Middle Ages, a woodcarver and his wife made cookie molds to help them tell the story of the Nativity. Jack's mother surprises him with an angel cookie on Christmas morning and, in the spirit of the story he's been told, he gives it to a destitute stranger who comes to the door begging for food. While at times the prose is too precise in pointing out the parallels between the two eras (e.g., "Jack...wondered if times in the Middle Ages had been harder than they were right now, and if boys missed their fathers like he missed his") and the appearance of the poor stranger at the door is contrived, the overall lesson of giving prevails. The atmospheric illustrations depict Jack's kitchen as spare but welcoming. The mouthwatering cookies look as if they can satisfy both physical and spiritual hunger. Refreshingly stripped of holiday commercialism, this is an appropriate title for those who wish to introduce a new perspective to the Christmas story.-Joanna K. Fabicon, Los Angeles Public Library

School Library Journal

It's the Depression, and Jack and his mother struggle to get by in their small town. When Jack's mother begins to bake cookies to give away to others, she explains the history behind the family's wooden cookie molds and draws Jack into her baking. As they work together, she tells him the story of European woodcarvers and their families in the Middle Ages making cookies in shapes that could be used to tell the story of Christ's birth. Jack's only Christmas gift that year is a large angel cookie, which he then gives away to a stranger who arrives on Christmas morning. Jack offers the angel cookie to the man with a few concluding sentences that convey his beliefs, neatly echoing the Biblical concept that any stranger might be an angel and must be given hospitality. The tale is told in an understated way, complemented by Chabrian's sensitive watercolor illustrations, which convey Jack's range of emotions. (author's note, cookie recipe) (Picture book. 5-9)

Kirkus Reviews