Advent Books

Who is this man they call Max Lucado? The man that brings you in the presence of God with tears in your eyes with everthing he writes.

I have still not been able to get this book away from my wife long enough to read it. She is VERY impressed with it, and in fact is buying ten more copies to give to friends and loved ones.
We have read several of Max Lucado's books, but this is one of the best (I am told).

The inspiration, humour and pure joy I received when reading books by Max Lucado cannot be counted. Max has helped me answer many questions in my walk with God. He is funny, and Max, I have to say you have a case of "stuckititis" with me. I am looking forward to my next purchase of a Max Lucado next week. Your penmanship, your ministry, and your love for humankind shows in your writings. I thank God that I have found this treasure.

Thank you Max

If you have never read any of Max's books, I urge you to do so. His writing style is easy to read, and you will learn things about God painlessly. I am reading Just Like Jesus and I can't put it down. I am underlining so much and taking notes, what insight! An enjoyable yet informative read. I can't hardly put the book down. Thanks Max for all you do.

Stinky Face is called Stinky because he's a super smelly skunk and everyone calls him Stinky Face. My Mom or Dad have to read these books to my brothers EVERY night. They never get tired of them.

This is a GREAT book. I love all of the Stinky Face books. My favorite is the first one I Love You Stinky Face. I think I've read it at least 5000 times since I was really little. Every kid should have the stinky books.

If you have followed the Stinky face books you will find that the reason for the name stinky face is introduced in "I love you Stinky Face"
I run a home day care and these books are right up the childrens alley. They stay interested and beg me to read them. I would recommend them to EVERYONE!

Title aside, this is actually a rather sweet holiday picture book for young kids. While Mama decorates, a little girl (I think it's a girl) asks questions about the irrational worries she has - what if snow covers the door? What if the reindeer's antler gets stucik in the branches of the tree over my window? Etc. Mama responds with practical solutions to each of these fears, and eases the child's mind. This is an engaging idea for a picture book, as many children are apt to wonder odd things like this, and will appreciate the tone of comfort. Those who know better will find it all funny. The book is marred only by the completely unnecessary ending, where the mother says "Merry Christmas, my stinky face" to the child. Readers are apt to wonder why the mother uses this supposed term of affection, as it has never been introduced before - for some reason it is also used as the title of the book. But with some explanation, most kids will enjoy the rest of the story.

Trust me! The pictures don't do this book justice!

Corey does an excellent job of capturing the magic of the holiday through a child's eyes. She also makes an effort to show how even a child can make a big difference in the world around her if she has the courage to act on what she believes.

I fell in love with Helquist's artwork while reading the Series of Unfortunate Events. There's something about the whimsical nature of his drawings....the sharp features, the minute details, the mystical feeling about them. I almost expect Milly to wink at me from the cover!

All in all this is an inspiring book, and a fitting opener to the holiday season. This one's sure to be a family favorite, so don't let it get away!

This book is a fantastic read for any Macy's Day Parade fan. The drawings by Helquist are fantastic and put you right into the moment of the 1924 holiday start. It will definitely put one and all in the family in the mood for Thanksgiving and the season it rings in. Personally, I have purchased a couple for friends and relatives with youngsters who live abroad so they to can view one of our wonderful traditions.

I use historical fiction a lot in my classroom, and was excited to see Milly and the Macys Parade. It's a great story-with lots of alliteration--and also a beautiful illustration of how as a country of immigrants, most of America's culture and traditions (in this case the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade) actually stem from various immigrant cultures and traditions. More important for my third graders though, it's a fun, engaging story (with a very spunky heroine determined to save the holidays) and not at all sappy. It's also a visual treat-the artwork is detailed and rich, but quirky enough so that the boys like it even though the main character is a girl . I've only had it in my classroom for 4 days, but so far students have taken it home every night. I whole-heartedly recommend this picturebook for the holidays or any time of year!

Millie is a little Polish girl and gets the swing of things in New York. It's near Thanksgiving and the Macy's department store is wrapped up like a present. Millie visits the contents of the present everyday after school.
Millie's father works at Macy's and some of his friends from other countries besides Poland. They all miss their customs, holidays, food, and religion. That's when Millie has an idea that will suit everyone...
~Erin
Age 11

A delightful book for children and the child in all of us.

.....story what-ever time of year. This is a beautiful story of christmas past and future,i`ts about remembering those things that we take for granted most days and when not around are suddenly remembered.This book also stands for independence, beauty in all shapes and sizes but most of all change...which can be a good thing...given time.

I had the opportunity to read The Minstrel Tree, to a
group of youngsters, ranging from 2 to 10 years old,
several weeks ago, at the Dover Plains, New York Library
The children enjoyed the illustrations as I continued with
the book. The kids enjoyed the characters and really got
into them, to the point that they would not let me stop
reading at the end of the secession. They had to know what
happened, so we continued and finished the book. At the end
they all clapped. It's an enjoyable and entertaining story.

The Minstrel Tree is a book that I just found so heartwarming and so fresh and so beautifully illustrated. It is so wise and meaningful at this particular time because of the theme of percerverence in the face of adversity. Mr. Shane's writing style is both right for young readers and never plays down to them and at the same time is totally engaging for the adult reader. This book is a must for this Christmas and many more. IT IS A CLASSIC!

This book will appeal to readers of all levels. The story line has multiple meanings for children and adults. The story of how the real Christmas message is delivered to an old carmadgeon is told in a delightfully meaningful way. The art is beautiful and reminiscent of farms I have seen.I hope to see it become a Christmas classic for all families.

Mint's Christmas Message by Mary Y. Spitz is a powerful holiday story set during a stormy Christmas Eve, as Rebecca's Grandfather Tom tries to save a freezing pony. After all his attempts fail, Tom learns a lesson that will transform his spirit about the meaning of the Savior and Christmas itself. A soulful story, heart-touchingly illustrated by Joanne Y. Pierce, Mint's Christmas Message is a children's picture book that will delight young readers the year round.

This will touch many of all ages with its takeoff of the infamous flock of birds and the barn story.

Here, developed in tale of horse named Mint and its use by God to allow Grandpa to realize the truth about the Christmas season, that in Christ God came to earth from heaven above to be our Savior.

The story is well-written with focus on children listeners and readers. The art is just delightful and very well done.

Wonderful gift for your own kids, grandkids.

This is a wonderful and uplifting family story. Our whole family loved it. The story will be particularly appealing to any child who likes animals, especially horses. For small children, it is a nice book to be read by or with parents. For those a bit older, the story and writing are interesting and challenging enough to make for a fun and easy read. Probably would be a super gift for Xmas without spending a fortune.

Miracle on 10th Street is an anthology of Christmas essays and poems written by Madeleine L'Engle taken from her many years of writing. This book is for adults and teens and not at all for four to eight year old children as described in the Amazon critique. It is a beautiful book, visually and spiritually and would make a wonderful addition to any Christmas collection. It definitely is a Christmas blessing.

I bought this book after briefly glancing through it as a gift for a friend. After getting it home, I didn't want to give it away. Madeleine L'Engle writes beautifully about not only Christmas but the entire Christian life and sums it up in this word: Love. 10th Night evoked in me both joy and pain at what Christmas can be but often isn't. Her insights as a mother into Mary's life as the mother of the Savior were poignant as well as the fears, pain and joy she has experienced for her own children. Additionally, as someone only vaguely familiar with the ancient Christian calendar, I came to appreciate what the celebration and meditation on Advent, Epiphany, etc., could bring to me as a Christian. I wholeheartedly recommend this book for the Christian to encouurage them at any time of the year time and for the non-believer to give them a glimpse of Divine Love.

This is a cute book with charming illustrations. It almost appears to have two endings, but for the age it's intended, that shouldn't matter. It serves its purpose well - entertaining both children and adults. You don't often find books written and illustrated by the same person as this one is. I was pleased with my purchase.

My mother got this book for my daughter, who is now 5. She absolutely loves this book, and quite frankly, I do too. I am going to buy another one for keepsake, because we are wearing the first one out.

This is an excellent story for kids and parents! As wonderful as the story is, the illustrations are even better. My 2 1/2 year old wants me to read "the Santa book" every night before bed. I highly recommend this book for children of all ages. It will soon be a classic right along with The Night Before Christmas.

This will become a timeless story! The artwork is breathtaking, and the story definently got the attention of my 5 year old! Anxious to see what Michael Garland does next!

It's well known that there is a contradiction between the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John regarding the events leading up to the Passion and the dating of the crucifixion of Jesus.

However, this erudite little book in which Geza Vermes's eminent scholarship in nonetheless lightly worn shows further difficulties in the Christian testimonies. Namely, the Infancy narratives between Luke and Matthew are so divergent as to be difficult if not impossible to harmonize.

This of course is not what ecclesiastical authorities want to hear. But Professor Vermes shows conclusively why this must be so.

I confess the book astounded and agitated me. Surely, there couldn't be such confusion? I knew that Jesus was likely born in the spring and the acquisition of Christmas occurred by the co-opting of pagan solstice ceremonies. But to find almost all aspects of the Christmas story--no exact number of Magi, no old status to Joseph, as examples--to which I have spent a lifetime ascribing to is disconcerting to say the least. Vermes, however, makes his scholarship stand out for its effectiveness, simplicity, and brilliance.

The Nativity: History & Legend has much to commend it, if nothing else but to challenge the thinking of the doctrinaire Christian. One hopes all are made the better for it. As John Stuart Mill said, "He who knows only his side of the argument knows little of that."

It is refreshing and revitalizing to get legend separated from history. At the same time I love what one of my teachers, Fr. Vincent Vasey at the University of Dayton once said, not necessarily of the Infancy Narrative, "If it isn't true it ought to be true because it makes such a good story."

Noted scholar Geza Vermes focuses his attention on the nativity stories about Jesus, in a fashion similar to his 2006 book The Passion. He covers such topics as where and when Jesus was born, where he lived, who his father and brothers were, etc. Along the way he makes several excursions into such related topics as Jewish marriage practices in the 1st century, the two meanings of the word "virgin", etc.

The text is well written, although at times I thought it rambled, and there is no coherent organization, although at the end of the day, he covers just about every topic one can imagine. The notes are sparce and the bibliography ever sparcer, but one nonetheless gets the feeling that Vermes speaks with authority.

While this is certainly a very interesting book, people familiar with the literature will not find much new here. But for a beginning student this will be very informative.

Here the respected scholar investigates the main events surrounding the nativity in an attempt to establish what really happened. He compares Christmas in Christian imagery with the gospel accounts of Matthew and Luke, which are contradictory and confusing in many aspects. They agree on only a few basic points but there are many complications and discrepancies. Vermes looks at how various Christian scholars deal with this, for example John P Meier in A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus and Raymond Brown in Birth of the Messiah.

The author performs a textual interpretation and analyses the evidence. Then the findings are compared to all relevant information from parallel Jewish documents and sources of literature and history, including the Dead Sea Scrolls. First the genealogies of Jesus in the aforementioned gospels are compared (including a side by side comparison) and Vermes succeeds in making even this subject absorbing in light of the strange discrepancies.

Next he looks at the concept of miraculous births in Judaism and Paganism: virginal conception, extraordinary birth stories in the Old Testament and the weird account in Genesis 6 that talks of celestial beings interbreeding with mankind that gave rise to a race of giants. The Hellenistic Jewish birth stories of the writer Philo are also considered.

Chapter Five: Virgin and Holy Spirit, explores the gospel accounts with the prophecy of Isaiah concerning a young woman who would give birth to a son. The earliest extant text of Matthew is in Greek so it is perhaps not surprising that the quote of Isaiah 7:14 comes from the Greek Septuagint not from the Hebrew Bible. This gospel was influenced by the Septuagint's rendering of "Almah" (young woman) as "Parthenos" (Virgin). There are many unexpected, surprising and confusing aspects to the version of Matthew.

The date and place of birth are discussed next. Needless to say, there are problems with the date between the gospel accounts and when measured against what we know about the history. The nearest safe conclusion is that Jesus was born before the spring of 4BC. And alas, even the town seems to in dispute, but here I don't fully follow Vermes when he questions the Bethlehem connection for lack of enough proof.

The Premonitory signs of the nativity are the announcement to the shepherds, the Magi from the East and the star. These are discussed in the light of history and the Old Testament. Next is the murder plot. Geza confirms that Herod had a murderous character. He compares the murder of the children with the murder of the Israelite boys in Egypt, looks at the infancy of Moses and the parallels between the two occurrences.

Chapter 9: The Settlement of Jesus in Galilee, deals with among other issues the meaning of the word "Nazarene." The words Netser (Branch) and Nazoraios (from Nazareth) do not come from the same root and Samson who was called a Nazirite is not a suitable type for Jesus. The last chapter deals with the two supplements to the infancy gospel in Luke: the birth of John The Baptist, including the Magnificat and the Benedictus which are cleverly combined anthologies of poetic abstracts from various parts of the Hebrew Bible, and the account of the young Jesus in the temple.

The Epilogue looks at the infancy gospels in retrospect. There is a summary of differences and a discussion of the relation of the birth narratives to the main gospels. Vermes believes that these were a later addition for the benefit of a gentile audience. It is the prologue just as the resurrection narrative is the epilogue. The Greek narrative was placed over a Semitic original and represents the final stage of the Greek development, manifesting in the virgin conception, the idea of the Son of God as God with us (Emanuel) and the full development of the Messiah Redeemer.

There is a map of the Holy Land and 10 woodcuts by Albrecht Durer. The book concludes with notes, a bibliography and index. This book raises many questions for the believer. My further research has revealed that according to church fathers like Irenaeus and Jerome there existed a Hebrew (or Aramaic written in Hebrew alphabet) version of Matthew that was used by at least two early groups of believers, the Ebionites and the Nazarenes. Called The Gospel of the Hebrews, it lacked the two chapters on the nativity.

Apparently the Ebionites rejected the pre-existence, virgin birth, divinity and resurrection. They emphasized the oneness of God and considered Jesus to be the biological son of Joseph and Mary. According to Jerome and Epiphanius, the Jewish believers called Nazarenes also used the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew and adhered to Torah but they did accept the virgin birth, the resurrection and the divinity of Yeshua. I highly recommend the work of David Bivin in this regard, especially the book Understanding the Difficult Words of Jesus.

Kabbalah of Yeshua by Zusha Kalet

The Passion: The True Story of an Event That Changed Human History by Geza Vermes

Restoring the Jewishness of the Gospel: A Message for Christians by David H Stern

Ruth & Esther: Shadows of Our Future by Frank Morgan

Yeshua: A Guide to the Real Jesus and the Original Church by Ron Moseley

The story is a classic, so I won't bother you with my opinion of the details. This book is a favorite during our holiday season bedtime readings because of the wonderful illustrations.

I picked up my copy through Amazon's 4 for 3 promotion, but several sellers have this available for less than $5.

I can't believe that this edition, illustrated by Douglas Gorsline, is no longer available. This is, without a doubt;), the illustrated version that has the most ethereal Christmas Eve atmosphere accompanying the classic poem. I am glad that I still have my badly worn childhood copy, but I would like to get a new one, and others for gifts. Bring it back!

As a child, this was always my favorite edition of Moore's poem to read because Gorsline's illustrations always took me away to a nostalgic world where Christmastime was a perfect time. I loved the details in each room, finding the family cat in each picture, locating the Star of Bethlehem in every scene and especially Gorsline's version of St. Nick...one of the best. I recommend this edition to anyone who, like me, loves to read this classic poem every Christmas and is looking for a nice set of illustrations to help bring the story to life.

The classic illustrations, by Douglas Gorsline, of the timeless story is what sets this book apart from all other editions of "The Night Before Christmas". This simple paperback book is a beloved treasure that should be shared with the generations to come!

The Night Before Christmas is a classic and an absolute must read for holidays. I saw this book in a local bookshop and immediately picked it up. I can't get over how gorgeous this book is. Each illustration and cuts are done with great detail and the negative space that's created by the cut papers are magnificent. I gave it to my family and friends for Christmas and they absolutely loved it. Not recommended for young kids as cut-outs are delicate. But it is something that one might want to keep for collection and continue to cherish over the holidays.

I collect Night Before Christmas books. I found this one a few days ago at a children's store. It is so incredibly beautiful. It has silhouettes, cut-outs, and ends with an insanely beautiful pop-up. I love kids but this is not a book for children -- it is a masterpiece - a work of art -- read it to your kids but then save it for yourself!

This new Night Before Christmas has the look and feel of a Victorian Christmas. The lillustrations are Arthur Racham inspired and make this so much more than a children's Christmas book. Buy you kids one and them one for yourself and one for each of your friends! They will be love it...

I collect The night before Christmas books, and this one is lovely. The black cutouts are dramatic. Wouldn't recommend it for young children; too easy to tear.