My true love gave to me illustrated by Scott McKowen

This small velvet covered book caught my eye at a recent charity book sale. The title is a little misleading - the real title is My true love gave to me: Twelve Days of Christmas. I have already talked about a number of versions of this famous song.

Book seller blurb: From a partridge in a pear tree to 12 drummers drumming, a beautifully illustrated celebration of the most festive time of the year. One of the most popular holiday songs of all time, The Twelve Days of Christmas probably originated in France during the late Middle Ages and became popular in England as a chant sung without music. The 12 days are traditionally those following Christmas, with the last day being the end of the season. Over the years the lyrics have changed but the song remains a perennial favourite, recorded by everyone from Frank Sinatra to Alvin and the Chipmunks. My True Love Gave to Me is an exquisitely illustrated edition of the song's famous lyrics, featuring the art of Scott McKowen, an award-winning illustrator and graphic designer. Each day is accompanied by a richly detailed-and often whimsical-full-page scratchboard illustration of its grand and unusual gift. Populated by a partridge, turtle doves, French hens, calling birds, golden rings, geese, swans, maids a-milking, ladies dancing, lords a-leaping, pipers piping and drummers drumming ...

You already know the words but here is some of the scrumptious art. This book was published in 2014 but it is still available. [9781770852310]

Five Gold Rings

Nine Ladies Dancing

Eleven Pipers Piping

The Little Fir Tree by Margaret Wise Brown illustrated by Barbara Cooney

 

The seed grows into a little fir tree. After seven summers a man comes early in Winter and carefully digs up the tiny tree. The tree becomes the focus of their Christmas and brings joy to his young son who is not able to walk or leave his bed. 

This pattern continues for several years until one Winter the man does not come. The little fir tree thinks he has been forgotten and then in a beautiful turn of events a group of caroling children arrive and leading the way is the young boy who is now able to walk into the forest to see his special tree. Interspersed throughout the book there are Christmas carols and other traditional Christmas songs.

The songs are: O Christmas Tree; O come little milk cows; Here we come a wassailing.

Margaret Wise Brown (1910 - 1952) wrote over 100 books including the famous Goodnight Moon and my personal favourite - An Important Book. I previously talked about The Dead Bird and A Home in the Barn. 

This is another very old Christmas book. I talked about Christmas Eve at the Mellops' yesterday.  The Little Fir Tree was first published in 1954 but my copy is a 1982 reprint. This book does have an old-fashioned feel but the story is a gentle classic. Here is the edition from 2009.

Reading A Little Fir Tree reminded me of a story from my childhood that has lingered with me decades after I read it in the 1960s. It told a similar story about young disabled (they used the word crippled) child who cannot leave their bed. This story was in the 'reader' Travelling On. The title is 'The Little Cuckoo Clock' and the credits at the front of this book list is as a story by Gilmore Wood. In this story a clock maker brings the child a beautifully carved cuckoo clock as a special Christmas gift. The miracle of the healing an unwell child is also the theme of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and Heidi by Johanna Spryi.

Christmas is coming to Australia so sing a song or two

Colin Buchanan (with Greg Champion) has rewritten many favourite Christmas songs and given them a very distinct Australian flavour.  Here are five of them which originally came with an enclosed music CD (and yes they are all out of print). I should mention the illustrators you can see here - Roland Harvey; Kilmeny Niland; Nick Bland and Glen Singleton.

This one has beautiful end papers and mentions many of our gorgeous Australian native flowers such as the bottle brush, waratah, Christmas bush and of course the yellow wattle (which oddly does not flower at Christmas time). You can hear a different version of this song here (not the one included in this book).

This one was published in 2006 and I am guessing might have been the first book by the now famous illustrator Nick Bland. You may know him from books like The Wrong Book; The very noisy Bear (and others in this series); King Pig and A Monster wrote me a Letter. You can hear this song here. 

This one has illustrations by the wonderful Kilmeny Niland (she died in 2009 read this tribute by Maurice Saxby). Kilmeny illustrated There's a Hippopotamus on our roof eating Cake. This Christmas book contains ten songs by Colin Buchanan (Bucko) such as Australian's all let us Barbeque; C'mon, it's an Aussie Christmas; and He's the Aussie Santa. 

Take a look at this blog post from 2020 where I mention other Australian versions of this song. Starting with one platypus up the gum tree, then two jackaroos, three meat trays, four footy fans, five rusty utes, six snags, seven chooks, eight jumbucks, nine dingoes, ten swaggies, eleven cricket legends and twelve surfing Santas you can see this is a very different version. 

If you don't live in Australia you might need some one to translate the words in this one  - ripper, deadset; crikey; thongs (footwear); and a billabong.

My favourite Australian Christmas song is actually a carol. It is more serious and lyrical than those offered in the books I have mentioned in this post. Click the song title to hear the music.

Carol of the Birds

Out on the plains the brolgas are dancing

Lifting their feet like warhorses prancing

Up to the sun the woodlarks go winging

Faint in the dawn light echoes their singing

Crana! Orana! Orana to Christmas Day.

Down where the tree ferns grow by the river

There where the waters sparkle and quiver

Deep in the gullies bell-birds are chiming

Softly and sweetly their lyric notes rhyming

Orana! Orana! Orana to Christmas Day.

Friar birds sip the nectar of flowers

Currawongs chant in wattle tree bowers

In the blue ranges lorikeets calling

Carols of bush birds rising and falling

Orana! Orana! Orana to Christmas Day.