A festive read-aloud brimming with all the joy and excitement of Christmastime — beginning, of course, with picking out a tree!Part of the magic of the Christmas season stems from the traditions that families and friends take part in every year: hanging up stockings; putting lights in the windows; and, one of the most important of all, picking out and taking home the Christmas tree. With style and warmth, debut author Patricia Toht and Jarvis, the author-illustrator of
Alan’s Big, Scary Teeth, evoke all the rituals of decorating the tree — digging out boxes jam-packed with ornaments and tree trimmings, stringing tinsel, and, at long last, turning on those twinkling lights. Joyously drawn and rhythmically written, this celebration of family, friends, and the holiday season is as merry as the tradition it depicts.
Patricia Toht once owned a children’s bookshop called Never Never Land before turning a love of books into a love of writing.
Pick a Pine Tree is her debut picture book. Patricia Toht lives in Atascadero, CA.
Jarvis is an illustrator and animator who has worked as both a record jacket designer and an animation director. He is the author-illustrator of
Alan’s Big, Scary Teeth. Jarvis lives in Manchester, England.
The short, rhyming text has a bouncy, appealing tone...Delightful mixed-media illustrations use a flattened perspective, simple shapes, and glowing, light-filled backgrounds for a fresh take on the tree-decorating tradition. The illustrations are all in double-page-spread format with compositions that will work well for reading to a group or with just one child in a lap. Pick this delightful story for a Christmas storytime, for library collections, or for family reading around the Christmas tree.
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Holiday spirit crackles in Toht’s warm, step-by-step recounting of how humble stately pines transform into shimmering Christmas trees...Jarvis’s chalk and pencil texturing adds to the sense of a casual, homey holiday filled with traditions many families will recognize.
—Publishers Weekly
The pencil, chalk, paint, and digitally colored paintings are brimming with holiday cheer and warmth. Share with little ones prior to decorating a tree or as secular Christmas fare for holiday storytimes.
—School Library Journal
Toht’s rhyming text is greatly illuminated by Jarvis’s mixed-media illustrations, which imbue each step in the process with holiday warmth and capably capture that satisfying, twinkling glow of Christmas decorations.
—The Horn Book
