There was no room for Jesus in the inn. I know that was a travesty, and
yet I've always been so moved by the notion of Him being born in a
stable amongst all the livestock. No doubt many births had occurred
there before and would again; it always struck me as a warm, friendly
sort of place to be born, and much more accessible to visiting shepherds
than a lush room indoors. So I always like books that focus on the
humble circumstances of Jesus' birth.
One Winter's Night
is rather odd as a Nativity story because while the text clearly hints
at the divine identity of the baby about to be born and goes so far as
to name the man and woman as Joseph and Mary, the setting certainly does
not seem to be Bethlehem of two thousand years ago. The watercolor and
pastel illustrations by husband-and-wife team Leo and Diane Dillon
depict a barn that definitely doesn't look more than a couple centuries
old, at most. It could even be a modern farm, though none of the tools
scattered about the yard, which is enclosed with a wooden fence, are
motorized.
When Mary and Joseph arrive at the farm - which we
see in pictures but don't actually witness in the text - there is no
sign of an innkeeper, or perhaps a farmer in this case. There's no
indication that there was anywhere else they might have stayed, or why
they were traveling in the first place if not for the census. This
ambiguous modernization of the Holy Family is a bit confusing, though
it's interesting to see them in another context. The humans have kind
faces with dark skin. They are bundled up against the snow, so we don't
get a very clear picture of what they're wearing, though Mary is in the
traditional blue and bearded Joseph wears a hat.
Each of the
left-hand pictures is half-sized, with room for text on the bottom, and
sepia-toned, while the right-hand illustrations are in full color and
occupy the whole page. These directly complement the narration, while
the smaller paintings indicate what is happening elsewhere, first
showing Mary and Joseph's arrival and later a growing crowd of creatures
from neighboring land gathering outside the barn to witness this very
special event.
The main focus of the book is not on Mary and
Joseph but on Martha, a young cow about to give birth for the first
time. She wanders into the barn in search of humans to watch over her,
and Joseph soon begins to comfort the frightened beast. The paintings of
Martha, whose naming as a complement to Mary must have been deliberate,
are lovely; I just want to reach right into the scene and scratch her
behind the ears. The book extolls the compassion of Mary and Joseph as
they welcome her into the stable and take measures to ensure her
comfort.
In creating the parallel between Mary and Martha,
first-time picture book author John Herman perhaps downplays the
divinity of Jesus, particularly when Joseph says, "Well, now, two
glorious babies on one winter's night." But as James Herriot
demonstrated time and again in his tales of delivering livestock in
sub-zero temperatures, every birth is a miracle. To emphasize that fact
is to glorify the Creator, and I assume that this was Herman's
intention. In that spirit, the beauteous One Winter's Night is a lovely and life-affirming tale.
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