You Choose Christmas

Pippa Goodhart

Nick Sharratt

Puffin, 2023

32pp., hbk., RRP $A24.99

9780241556016

For many, Christmas brings to mind images of decorated trees twinkling with lights; a jolly, fat man in a red suit bringing gifts; family seated around a table eating turkey and trimmings and…

But there are as many choices to make about how Christmas can be celebrated as there are families in the world, and this amazing book brings together many of them in a unique way that encourages the young reader to pick and choose their own adventure through this time.  

Written in rhyme, each double spread has a different focus on the general commonalities of the season such as the advent calendar, decorating the tree, Santa’s workshop, or choosing gifts and then there are a multitude of things that the child can choose, either those that are familiar or maybe making up a different story.  For example, would they send a Christmas card with a picture of La Befana or a pohutukawa tree, a “snowman” made of sand or 13 mischievous “Yule Lads”? Similarly, what might be on their Christmas menu?  Indeed, when would they have it?

Apart from being an entertaining way to get the child to engage with the book, it is also an opportunity to show them that there are many ways to celebrate, and that what might be familiar to them may be foreign to the family next-door.  But there is no right way or only way.  They might even like to think about the things that other families do that they would like to try, and consider which of the things their family does that they will share with their own children in years to come.  

This is the latest in this series which is celebrating its 21st birthday, one that has endured because the young reader can return to it time and time again and have a new, unique experience each time as they not only learn to make choices and decisions but have the power to do so..