The Stable Rat and Other Christmas Poems - Hardcover

Gr. 3-6, younger for read aloud. The author of the acclaimed Dorp Dead (1965) and The Treasure Is the Rose (1974) has composed a beautiful suite of poems telling the Christmas story. The language is muscular, precise, powerful; the poems are rhymed or not. The voices are those of the animals or observers. "Why did three shepherds usher in six sheep / to form a wall of warmth across the door? / How did they know that child so deep asleep . . . / would wake a world?" Or in "A Child's Song for a Child": "Be my flower / Be my star. / Lend me a breath / Of what you are. / Partaking of the rose / I might / Candle myself / A little light." From the stable rat's epiphany to the animals' hymn to joy, Cunningham rings changes like handbells, making a familiar story glisteningly new. Lobel's paintings are full of color and rhythm: sheep, oxen, camels as well as angels, shepherds, and wise men are patterned in bold swathes. Stars, flowers, drapery, all form sinuous lines and tapestry motifs. A glorious addition to the Christmas canon. John Peters
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