Hurray!  It’s Perfect Picture Book Friday!

I have a cute one for you today 🙂

Along with a heads up that this is probably the last Perfect Picture Book Friday of 2016.  By next Friday the Holiday Writing Contest will be underway… as well as the Friday after…and then we will all be up to our ears in holiday preparations – cleaning, sampling the gingerbread    baking,tasting the Christmas brownies shopping, wrapping, greeting, entertaining the little angels who are on school vacation,sustaining ourselves with Something Chocolate traveling, spending time with friends and family – far too busy for blogging!

But I hope you’ll like today’s pick – a little reminiscent of Eloise to my mind!

Title: The Biggest Smallest Christmas Present

Written & Illustrated By: Harriet Muncaster

G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books For Young Readers, October 18 2016, fiction

Suitable For Ages: 3-5

Themes/Topics: Holidays (Christmas), ingenuity, perseverance, making the best of things

Opening: “Clementine lived in an ordinary house on an ordinary street with her ordinary mom and dad and brother, Charlie.
But there was one extraordinary thing about Clementine…”

Brief Synopsis: Clementine is not an average-size girl.  She’s so tiny she bathes in a teacup.  Santa keeps bringing her presents that are much too big.  How can she get him to bring her a present that’s the right size?

Links To Resources: The 5 Best Toys Of All Time (or how to let kids use their imagination and creativity as Clementine does 🙂 ); 25 Easy Christmas Crafts For Kids

Why I Like This Book:  Clementine is cute and spunky.  She may be tiny, but she finds ingenious and creative ways to use the gifts she receives that are too big for her.  She can’t use the xylophone sticks to play the instrument… but they make great stilts!  And the xylophone itself? Well, she can play it by dancing on it – making her own music!  The fairy slippers are too big to wear… but one of them makes a perfect bed.  Still, she longs for a present that’s just the right size.  She does her best to explain this to Santa, but her first two attempts are foiled.  I love the ending because of the ambiguity.  Did Santa really get her message?  Or has he known all along that she would get more out of presents she had to find her own way to enjoy?  The art is delightful and engaging, showing Clementine’s disporportionatly big personality.  A fun, fresh read for Christmas time!

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do 🙂

For the complete list of books with resources, please visit Perfect Picture Books.

PPBF folks, please add your titles and post-specific links (and any other info you feel like filling out 🙂 ) to the form below so we can all come see what fabulous picture books you’ve chosen to share this week!

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!!! 🙂