The Fish in the Bathtub by Eoin Colfer illustrated by Peter Bailey

I am a huge fan of Barrington Stoke books and the Little Gems series but while this one is a sweet story I was left with so many questions. I kept wishing this book had a notes or back matter section.

What year is this book set? There is a hint that ABBA is a popular music group. Mamma Mia is mentioned and after some quick research I discovered that song was released in 1975. The publisher site says this book is set in post war Poland so I would have assumed it was closer to 1950-1960.

What was life like in Poland during this time if the setting is 1975? The story refers to food queues but perhaps this is just to emphasise that Lucja has an impatient personality.

The story also refers to the black market:

"Even the soldiers pretended not to see the old women who walked around the streets of Warsaw with big baskets that looked as if they were full of rags. ... Inside the basket were plastic bags, and in the bags there were lots of different sorts of meat."

Is Lucja neurodivergent? She cannot sit still. She cannot concentrate?  She asks questions but does not listen to the answers. Yet she is also very focused on topics that interest her and has a keen eye for tiny details. 

What is the tradition of fish for Christmas Eve dinner? Is this always carp? How is it cooked?

What has happened to the grandfather in the past? He is so bitter about Germans and Communists.

"No German or Communist is going to tell me I can't eat the fish from Polish rivers. First they took my house, they they blew it up, then they built us this ugly block of concrete. But I will have my carp. I have to make a stand."

The old woman does bring a fish for Grandpa. Trouble is - it is alive. They put it in the bathtub. Lucja seems to know a lot about the care of fish. She is also able to sit still with her fish. She enjoys talking to him and a friendship begins to form. Of course every reader will anticipate the problem. Christmas Eve is not far away. Grandpa wants his carp dinner but there is no way Lucja will allow him to "kill" her beloved fish.

This slim book has 54 illustrated pages. It is an enjoyable story but I just had so many unanswered questions. This story was first published in 2007 as one story in an anthology with the title The Midnight Feast. Then Barrington Stoke  published a version in 2014 with colour illustrations and later my copy was published in black and white in 2022. You can read the first chapter here. 

Featuring an introduction by Fearne Cotton, Midnight Feast includes stories and artwork by the best authors and illustrators in the business. Including: Darren Shan, Anthony Horowitz, 

Meg Cabot, Eoin Colfer, Garth Nix, Joe Craig, Kath Langrish, Brian Jacques, 

Oliver Jeffers, Jonathan Stroud, Maeve Friel, Annie Dalton, Margaret Mahy, Helen Dunmore, 

Chris d'Lacey, Jamie Oliver, Tony Hart and Eleanor Updale

Blurb: Heartwarming story set in post-war Poland charting a grandfather-granddaughter relationship, from the bestselling Artemis Fowl author. Little Lucja's Grandpa Feliks has seen off the German army, and the Communists, and now he is looking forward to a long and peaceful retirement. He plans to begin with a tasty Christmas Eve dinner of carp. But when the carp arrives alive and takes up residence in the bathtub and Lucja's heart, has Grandpa Feliks finally met his match?

Here is the website of Irish author Eoin Colfer who is famous for his Artemis Fowl book series. 

Strega Nona's Gift by Tomie dePaola

This is a very different Christmas story because it covers all the celebrations from 6th December until 6th January in Calabria. Strega Nona makes food for all the different days - the Feast of San Nicola; the Feast of Santa Lucia; the Feast of San Silvestro and so on. She works hard and keeps Big Anthony busy so nothing can go wrong until the night she bakes special food for all the animals. She asks Big Anthony to take turnips stuffed with greens and ceci (chickpeas) for their goat but something goes badly wrong!

Blurb: In Strega Nona's village, the holiday season is a time of celebrations - and nothing says celebration like a feast! All the kitchens are bustling from the Feast of San Nicola, when the children choose the food, to the Feast of Epiphany, when someone gets to be king or queen for the day. Even the animals share in the holiday spirit, and when Big Anthony smells the delicious treats Strega Nona is cooking for them, he decides that just a taste couldn't hurt, right? Wrong! Big Anthony gets his just desserts, while Strega Nona surprises everyone with a special gift.

Here are all the Strega Nona books. I think you need to read the first one so you understand the characters especially Big Anthony.

Big Anthony and the Magic Ring (1979)

Strega Nona’s Magic Lessons (1982)

Merry Christmas, Strega Nona (1986)

Strega Nona Meets Her Match (1993)

Strega Nona: Her Story (1996)

Big Anthony, His Story (1998)

Strega Nona Takes a Vacation (2000)

Brava, Strega Nona! A Heartwarming Pop-Up Book (2008)

Strega Nona’s Harvest (2009)

Strega Nona Does It Again (2013)

I talked about the wonderful Tomie dePaola in a previous post. In 2023 the US Postal service will issue a stamp in his honour.

This stamp honours prolific children’s book author and illustrator Tomie dePaola (1934-2020), whose extraordinarily varied body of work encompasses folktales and legends, informational books, religious and holiday stories, and touching autobiographical tales. The stamp art features a detail from the cover of “Strega Nona” (1975), the Caldecott Honor winning first book in the series. Set in southern Italy, the gently humorous story focuses on Strega Nona, “Grandma Witch,” who uses magic to help with matters of the heart and to cure her neighbours’ ills. Art director Derry Noyes designed the stamp with Tomie dePaola’s original art. US Postal Service

Here are lots of other Christmas books by Tomie dePaola - it makes me want to start a collection! In 1984 he published a pop-up book which looks terrific but the second hand copies now sell for over $200! Oh and it only has 13 pages. 

This one will be reissued in 2023. 

Cobweb Christmas: the tradition of Tinsel by Shirley Climo illustrated by Jane Manning

Do you put tinsel on your Christmas tree? Have you ever wondered why? How wonderful to discover this tradition is linked with a Ukrainian folk tale. Cobweb Christmas is one possible retelling of this tale. Ukrainians often include a spider as a decoration on their Christmas tree.

Tante prepares for Christmas. She lives alone with only her pets and farm animals for company but on Christmas eve each year the village children come to see her decorated tree. Each year she works hard to prepare for this event. The house is thoroughly cleaned and special decorations are baked. 

"Tante made cookie for the tree. She baked gingerbread boys and girls. She rolled sugar cookies shaped like new moons and cut cinnamon-cookie stars. She rubbed apples until they gleamed like glass to hand from the branches too."

Cleaning up the house means Tante needs to sweep away all the cobwebs. She swishes every spider out the door.

It is the tradition in this village that the children leave their shoes by their doors so Kriss Kringle can tuck a gift inside each shoe. On the evening of this particular Christmas Kriss Kringle meets all the displaced spiders. They explain that they just want to see the beautiful Christmas tree in Tante's house. Kriss Kringle opens the door so there is a small crack for the spiders. They scurry inside the climb all over the tree leaving a trail of their webs. Kriss Kringle returns to close the door and sees all the webs on the tree. 

"He knew how hard the old lady worked to make Christmas and how dismayed she'd be when she saw her tree. But he didn't blame the spiders for being curious. Instead, he decided to leave a special gift for Tante too. Gently Kris Kringle touched each week. Beneath his finger, the slender strands gleamed like gold and the dangling threads sparkled like silver."

Huge thanks to my friend at Kinderbookswitheverything for sharing this book with me. Take a look at her post about other Christmas folktales.

Sadly all of these books are now out of print but you might be lucky and find one in a library. I did find a video version of Cobweb Christmas. It does not quite have the same magic as reading the print book but it will give you a good idea about the story and the illustrations by Jane Manning. Here are another two books which explore this theme.