Amy Krouse Rosenthal Makes Learning Tasty in Christmas Cookies: Bite-Size Holiday Lessons

One of the coziest Christmastime traditions for many families is baking cookies together. In Christmas Cookies: Bite-Size Holiday Lessons, that experience serves as the cornerstone to some important lessons in vocabulary and life. Amy Krause Rosenthal and illustrator Jane Dyer team up for this clever book that celebrates the joy of the season with humor and gentleness, sharing messages that are useful throughout the year.

The book essentially is a series of definitions that are not so much definitions but examples of a particular word. Rosenthal, with a lot of help Dyer, gets her point across by showing rather than just telling. Just as Lemony Snicket constantly provides context-specific meanings for his words, Rosenthal relates a long list of words to Christmas, in particular the preparations for a Christmas party.

The book shows a mix of children and anthropomorphic animals, including a mouse, a lion, a giraffe and a squirrel, wearing clothes. The paintings have a somewhat smudgy look to them but are appealing, in part because of the generally cheerful expressions of the faces of humans and non-humans alike, in part because of the overall comfortable atmosphere conveyed.

My favorite aspect of the book, though, is the definitions. That’s the meat of the project, which each word standing out in large capital letters, followed by a kid-friendly explanation of what it means. For instance, “DISAPPOINTED means, I tried to make it looks like a star, but it didn’t turn out at all the way I expected.” I especially like this one because of the play on the word “point”. Some words go together especially well, like “FRUSTRATED” (“I can’t believe we burned the cookies again”) and “PERSEVERANCE” (“We tried and tried and tried, and finally we made the perfect non-burned batch.“) Other highlighted words include ANTICIPATION, TRADITION, CELEBRATE, APPRECIATIVE, PROSPERITY, CHARITABLE, RESPONSIBLE, MODERATION, RECIPROCATE, SELFISH, THOUGHTFUL, LONELY, SHARING, GRATITUDE, FAMILY, GRACIOUS, BELIEVE, JOY, PEACE and HOPE.

The format may seem like a recipe for a rather dull book, but on the contrary, Christmas Cookies is engaging as well as educational. And for a final nice touch, Rosenthal includes a recipe for Christmas cookies so children can test out some of these words for themselves as they prepare a Christmas treat with their parents. Delicious in more ways than one!