  | Full Text Reviews: Booklist - 09/15/1991 A warm family story extends the spirit of Christmas to the dark, quiet woods and the creatures that live there. On the night before Christmas, a boy, his little sister, and their parents always drive in their father's pickup from their house with its tree and bright holiday lights to the nice forgotten place where our town ends. Then they walk in the moonlight to their special tree. They find that it's grown, just as they have. They decorate it with all kinds of natural foods and sing carols as they huddle in the cold. Then they pack up and drive home squashed together in the front of the truck. Rand's double-spread watercolor paintings capture the family intimacy in the shadowy, secret wilderness. Together they glimpse a deer, then they hear an owl (a dramatic painting shifts perspective to show a huge owl looking down from a branch at the small family far below). There is mystery all around, and they are part of it. The next day in the midst of the boisterous human festivities, the boy imagines the wilderness animals at the tree, and the final picture shows bears and raccoons, doves and deer, feasting together. (Reviewed Sept. 15, 1991) - Copyright 1991 Booklist. Loading...
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