I really enjoyed reading this book. The descriptions that Cynthia Rylant used were brilliant. The book was about her childhood growing up in the country with her grandparents. She had many different tasks that she did during all the seasons, but winter was her absolute favorite. Everyone waited for something special during winter. That special thing was Christmas! Cynthia described how her grandfather would go out and get a tree from the woods behind their house and how her grandmother would go in the attic to get the ornaments that smelled of wool and mothballs. It is descriptions like this that made the book. When she was talking about the smell of mothballs I could almost smell them. If you were to close your eyes while someone read the book to you, you would be able to vividly see exactly what the author is writing about. The illustrations by Diane Goode were amazing, but with Cynthia Rylant giving all the descriptions that she did you almost don't need physical pictures. She talked about many other things that she did during the Christmas season such as singing at church and receiving a small bag of candy, nuts and a tangerine. She always gave the tangerine to her grandfather because they were his favorite.
This book would be great to use during writing time in the classroom. I know that during writing time in my classroom, some students have a hard time being really descriptive. I could read this book to show them how to write and use great descriptions about what you are writing.
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