This is a great chapter book for small children. It is about an old man who is carving a Jesse tree on the door of a church and a young annoying boy comes to see what he is doing. The boy eventually worms his way into the cranky man’s heart. A Jesse Tree is a tree carved with all sorts of symbolic carvings that tell the story of Christ. A ram is carved to represent Isaac and the sacrifice that was provided for Abraham to kill instead of his son Isaac.
A sheaf of corn is carved on the Jesse Tree to symbolize God’s faithfulness to Ruth.
Finally at the top of the tree is a star- God’s brightest star- Christ is born.
The old man tells the story of each carving represented in an insightful and theologically sound and at the same time simple manner. You could read a chapter a night about people in the Bible who point to Christ and at the last come to the star on the top of the Jesse Tree, Jesus.
Robert Sabuda’s pop up books are intricately wonderful. Our son-in-law, Tim, brought this book to us at Christmastime before he was our son-in-law. This book just might have cemented the deal! We put it upright on the mantel every Christmas as a special book for little people to carefully look at. Sabuda also did a boxed set of twenty-six Christmas cards that pop-up and each card represents a different letter of the alphabet. They sit in a little basket for grandchildren to look through. Athan took a special liking to them and wanted to take them home with him.
Another little thing we pull out every year for Christmas is a treasure chest of little books. They are only 2 1/2″ X 3″. My children always liked looking through them and now my grandchildren do. 
And yet another book that both adults and children can enjoy is The Christmas Day Kitten by James Herriot. It has nice big watercolors on each page for even the youngest child to stay interested.
Do you have any favorite Christmas books?
I think we’re going to start reading A Christmas Carol out loud at night. Dickens is best out loud I think.
I hate to admit that Eric and I did not read anything so lofty as Dickens. No, we spent our time reading Dave Barry’s ‘The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Dog’.
My son (now 37) loved Joan Walsh Anglund’s Brave Cowboy Series….and this time of year it was “The Cowboy’s Christmas”…..later my Grandchildren enjoyed them.. My Grandchildren all liked “Small One” by Alex Walsh.
I remember Joan Walsh Anglund for her greeting cards back in the 70′s and had no idea that she wrote books too.