Everything I Need to Know About Christmas I Learned From a Little Golden Book

Diane Muldrow

Random House, 2014

hbk., 96pp., RRP $A14.99

9780553497359

Christmas is coming and there is so much to do Cooking, cleaning, battling the crowds, making decorations,, going carolling… but there’s another side as well. 

This is an unusual book, if not unique.  Diane Muldrow has captured the lead-up to Christmas perfectly, but the charm of the book comes in its illustrations.  For each page is a page from a classic Little Golden Book of the past. Favourite characters such as the Pokey Little Puppy, The Gingerbread Man and many others offer valuable seasonal advice for having a happy holiday. Each is referenced to its original source – a story published between 1942 and 1964 – and takes the reader on a wonderful nostalgia trip (if they’re my vintage) or suggests a story that younger readers might like to explore, perhaps with their parents or grandparents who are more likely to be familiar with them.

If nothing else, it gives younger readers a glimpse into a previous time, the stories enjoyed then and the lifestyle led.