I remember getting very excited for Christmas every year as a young kid - and I still do! There’s something about the cheery atmosphere and all that delicious food and meeting family and friends. We’ve compiled this list with short summaries on books we recommend for Christmas.

Aside from some issues with race representation and some nudity in the book, Draw Me A Star is like most Eric Carle books in that you can’t go wrong with the bright, eye-catching collage art and the engaging narration that accompanies it. In reading and engaging with the book after reading, the child is encouraged to observe and admire their surroundings.

This book delivers the joy of poetry-inspired rhythm and repetition by Bill Martin Jr. with the classic Eric Carle visual experience. It’s an enjoyable read for both parents and children and works very well in classrooms, too. Learning the colours and animals in Chinese is fun and it’s nice to have the option to choose between hardback and board book, big and small, bilingual and monolingual!

Toshio Fukuda created a lovely series out of a simple and fun guessing game that’s suitable for beginner readers and very young children. The book is lovingly and thoughtfully designed. From the large, easy-to-read font to the soft cartoon drawings of all the cute animals, each book delivers a engaging experience for parent and child.

Overall, Lü Jiang has pieced together a wonderfully imaginative commute - if only commutes were so fantastical and enjoyable! It does a great job with an impressionist art style and a simple story while conveying the dream-like imagination of the child narrator. We have certain reservations about the art style and some of the more fantastical parts of the story, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that this is a beautifully and thoughtfully crafted book!

Does A Kangaroo Have A Mother, Too? is a classic Eric Carle book told with classic Eric Carle art style and vibrancy. With many books of his, the art style is far from realistic. But we really love the repetitive sentence/question structures - it opens up the opportunity to learn new vocabulary and gain confidence in reading aloud.

You might not have known that The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle has been translated into over 60 languges! However, many of these translations are out of print or dangerously close to being out of print. That’s why translations are extortionately priced on sites like Amazon.

Ever since I found out about Luka, I’ve been dying to try one out. When I finally got hold of one, I started exploring how well it worked and the ways in which it could fit into our bilingual household. EU Luka is slightly different from China/US Luka but it still works well - mostly!

Eliora really enjoys the book and it helps her enjoy the changing seasons in the UK. The activity should teach her not just colour but also encourage her to engage with the world around her!

My daughter’s got a special place in her brain for the books about food - we are a foodie family after all! One of those books is about drawing a cherry tree. We love the little catch at the end where the birds try to eat the drawing so we thought we’d do a little activity.