Five Great Books for A New Christmas Eve Tradition
We love learning about holiday traditions around the world, and one that we particularly love is Iceland's Christmas Eve Book Tradition, called Jólabókaflóð, or “Yule Book Flood." In Iceland, people exchange books on Christmas Eve and then spend the evening reading them. The tradition originated during World War II when it was hard to get access to foreign imports, but paper was fairly inexpensive. The population of Iceland wasn't large enough for book publishers to work year round so instead they flooded the market with new titles in the final weeks of the year. We love this tradition and have seen so many fun variations of it!
In case it's something you'd like to try out or you're looking for some books for your little ones this holiday season, here are our five current favorites:
This is a great book to get into the holiday spirit! A little girl writes Santa a letter, but he accidentally loses it! Luckily, things work out super well with a very touching ending that is a nice way to get our littles thinking about kindness.
How to Fold A Taco / Como doblar un taco by Naibe Reynoso and Ana Varela
This book by Naibe Reynoso is so great! Three things we love about this book: 1) It's bilingual and has rhyming verses in both English and Spanish which is amazing and truly so difficult to pull together! (2) The illustrations and story are so fun and engaging for little ones. (3) It's all about food and love, which let's be honest, we can't get enough of!
The link above is to Naibe's Con Todo Press website where she's got some awesome Thanksgiving deals going on!
En la estación espacial by Carron Brown and Bee Johnson
Our four year old is obsessed with these Shine-A-Light books. They're such an awesome way to incorporate non-fiction into your little one's reading routine! Each page has a cool hidden image on the back that you can see when you shine a flashlight behind the page. So much fun to read in the dark before bedtime! El Cuerpo Humano is another favorite from this series!
The link above is to my friend Amber's Usborne shop.
We love books that you can sing along to because they do such a great job of capturing the attention of our littest! La jirafa Rafa has a QR code on the back that links to a super catchy tune so you can sing along to the book!
Mis Primeras Canciones de Animales
And our littlest is still loving Mis Primeras Canciones de Animales. She's currently all about Un elefante se balanceaba... and it has been so fun to see her start learning the words and singing along!
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