Christmas (Commonwealth Union)_ If you have a family tradition of giving books as presents, there are some selections given below.
Cedric, the Rescue Dog (Ages 10-Adult)
This novella dramatizes the true story of Cedric, a British coastal rescue dog, one of the famous dog heroes of history. The New Foundland rescued 23 people amid treacherous storms and became a Victorian legend.
The author is an American painter who spent his life painting America and teaching 60,000 children art. Since he is a profound artist, this book also contains skillful artwork and illustrations unlike so many children’s books that have terrible art, which seems yet another unfairness to inflict on the young.
Cedric is recommended for ages 10 and up.
This book, priced at only $20, is a good gift for anyone who loves animals, historical novels based on true stories, or both.
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The Saints of Whistle Grove (High School-Adult)
Katie Schuermann is an American author who can make you want to dance with one page and sob at the next. The Saints of Whistle Grove, her just-released novel, is intense because of that power.
Whistle Grove depicts the birth and death of a small American farming community, through the life of its small church. Each new, chapter which is relatively short, jumps you forward or backward several decades in the same place.
Katie can make you laugh out loud and cry tears of joy. Anyone who has ever lived in a small town, farm, or intimately in the life of a church or school will, as they say, “feel seen” by her work. Those who want to live or a while inside quintessentially American surroundings, will also enjoy this read.
There’s nothing in Whistle Grove a child couldn’t read, and the language is not overly complex, but watching characters apostatize, struggle with polio, and lose children in a house fire may be too much or go over the heads of readers younger than high school. This book is for serious readers of fiction and serious ponderers of the human condition.
Schuermann went with the excellent boutique Kloria Press for this offering, which included some beautiful interior artwork and fitting cover. At only $15, you can easily obtain this for multiple people on your Christmas list. While shopping their site, you could grab one of their beautifully illustrated Christmas picture books for children.
Simplified Organization: Learn to Love What Must Be Done (Adult Women)
Simplified Organization would make an excellent Christmas present for almost any woman in your life, whether it is your mother, aunt, sister, wife, or grown daughter. At $16, you can buy it for all of them, and even complement it with a gift membership to Convivial Circle.
War on the American Republic (Adult)
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Hillsdale Professor Kevin Slack’s War on the American Republic would be a particularly good gift for one of the men on your list who likes political philosophy and thinks about ancient Rome almost every day and Slack’s book offers readers the intellectual grounding to “reassess what conservatives failed to conserve, Americanism, to define what the American people must conserve if they wish to survive.”
You can get this at the Federalist affiliate Amazon link or at Hillsdale’s online bookstore for $35.
Artist Biographies or Lion in the Box (Ages 6-Adult)
If you crave good children’s literature, you should be following Purple House Press. They specialize in resurfacing out-of-print children’s classics. Earlier this year, they ran a Kickstarter campaign that included the above beautifully illustrated artists’ biographies and sold the set at $108, and each book is $18 individually.
Lion in the Box, by Marguerite de Angeli, is another newly resurfaced release from them this year : a beautiful children’s author you really should not miss. This is a beautiful whole-family Christmas read-aloud about a poor family that bands together to take care of each other. This novella is just $12.
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Joy Pullmann the mother of six children, is executive editor of The Federalist, and a happy wife. Her ebooks include”101 Strategies For Living Well Amid Inflation,” “The Read-Aloud Advent Calendar,” and “Classic Books For Young Children. An 18-year education and politics reporter, Joy has testified before nearly two dozen legislatures on education policy and appeared on major media from Fox News to Ben Shapiro to Dennis Prager. Joy’s traditionally published books include “The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids,” from Encounter Books.
