Tuesday, December 1, 2015

December Reading Recommendation: A Rare Nativity



Can you believe it's December already? I love the Christmas season and I've decided to share with you some of interesting and unique Christmas books that our family is reading. (Since I won't have any new Castle to review this month, books are the next best thing, right?)

The first one is A Rare Nativity by Sam Beeson.

Everyone has heard of the Twelve Days of Christmas, but in A Rare Nativity we have the opposite--this guy is leaving more or less just bits of trash as "gifts" for his enemy each day.  For example, he gives him four old potatoes, broken glass, stuff like that.

But how the enemy responds is what makes this book different.

Powerful.

Just the perfect message for the Christmas season in its beauty and simplicity.

It's a hardback Christmas book and well worth the read. I know my family will be reading it again and again and I think everyone should own this one.

Here's the back copy:

We have all heard the song The Twelve Days of Christmas, and we have all seen the traditional Christmas crèche. Now, author Sam Beeson and photographers Nina and Terral Cochran combine these two classic Christmas icons to create A Rare Nativity.

Upon reading the first lines of the book, it is clear the narrator holds a bitter grudge as he sends his enemy crude and discarded gifts: On the first night of Christmas I gave my enemy a briar from a tanglewood tree. On the second night of Christmas I gave my enemy two rotten eggs.

Night after night the gifts pile up shards of glass, rusty nails, gnarled twigs, and more. What the narrator s enemy decides to do with each of these odious gifts is nothing less than a Christmas miracle. The photographic creation of the rare nativity at the end of the book is both a work of art and a wonder to behold.

You can get your copy for $15.68 (although you get 30% off if you use the promo code HOLIDAY30 on Amazon books) by clicking here 

2 comments:

Unknown said...

This was a wonderful story. I'd love to have the print copy so I could really see those illustrations:)

Julie Coulter Bellon said...

You would really like them I think! I did!