THROUGH THE ANIMALS’ EYES

Printed on creamy stock between heavy purple covers, this majestic rendition of the Christmas story makes a sumptuous gift item. Adding extra illustrations fore and aft, Wormell follows Mary and Joseph as they journey to Bethlehem past black storks, griffon vultures and a lion (all identified in a discursive key at the end), and settle in the stable. Meanwhile, shepherds and wise men, plus a Canaan dog, a gray wolf and other creatures, get the Good News, then flee with the Child to Egypt, “beyond King Herod’s grasp,” until it’s time for Jesus to “fulfill his wondrous destiny.” The animals, in dignified natural poses, generally occupy the foregrounds in Wormell’s deeply shadowed color woodcuts, but even younger viewers should have no trouble following the human story—with or without the formal, all-caps text on each verso. (Picture book. 6-9)