Nativity Book #4 - The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey

This is the fourth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Today's book is my husband's absolute favorite: The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski. The illustrations by P.J. Lynch are really beautiful and the story brings tears every time we read, well every time HE reads it because he is usually the one to read this story aloud. I think he likes it because it is about a woodcarver and he loves to carve wood. But, really this is a lovely story about love, death, family, children and a special set of Nativity figures. The text is beautifully written, but is a bit long for children under 4 or 5. I sometimes paraphrase it for my younger son, because the illustrations are beautiful and can still captivate him with my paraphrased text. My oldest son loves all of the text, and in fact, a few of the quotes from grumpy Mr. Toomey have become regular sayings around our house.

This book was made into a full-length movie last year, but we haven't see it yet.