Sunday, January 12, 2014

The little reindeer by Michael Foreman

I know it seems odd to talk about a Christmas book in January but this one has been on my pile since December.  You might remember we had a little event in our school library over the last twelve days of the school year.  Each day we announced a book for the twelve books (days) of Christmas and one lucky class from our junior grades won the book for the day to read and enjoy.

We had one or two classes who used this time to read a different Christmas book every day. When I asked two students from a Kindergarten class which book they enjoyed the most they did not hesitate and declared everyone loved The Little Reindeer so I bought it home to read.

This is a gentle story about a curious small reindeer who one day wanders into a building and suddenly finds himself wrapped up and placed on Santa's sleigh.  He jiggles around so much he eventually falls out of the sleigh and lands on the roof of a high rise building in New York city.  A small boy finds the little reindeer.  "In a corner of the shed the boy made a straw bed for the reindeer and fetched milk and a whole assortment of cereals.  'Tomorrow we can try lots of different things to eat and see which you like best."  The reindeer is housed with some pigeons and he learns to fly.  By summer he is big enough to give the boy rides around the city.  On one glorious double page we see the boy and reindeer flying over Central Park in autumn with all the trees covered in orange and golden leaves.  When winter returns the little reindeer is needed elsewhere but the boy finds a note :

"Dear Boy,
Thank you for looking after my smallest reindeer.  See you next year.  
Love Santa Claus."

In 2004 an animated version was released.  You can see a tiny extract here.  Read this book with a glass of milk and a peanut butter sandwich.

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