‘TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

Lach pairs 19 poems (including some song lyrics treated as poems) with art from the Metropolitan Museum in New York in a thoughtfully compiled Christmas anthology. The collection includes many traditional selections, such as the passage from Luke with the angel announcing Christ’s birth to the shepherds, “The Night Before Christmas,” and the words to several Christmas carols and one spiritual. Works are included from well-known poets such as Poe, Longfellow, Walter de la Mare, Lewis Carroll, e.e. cummings, Ogden Nash, and Langston Hughes, along with a stunning, though perhaps lesser-known poem by Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky. The striking art features a wide variety of media, including reproductions of a stained-glass window panel, an antique Christmas card, a tapestry, and a collage, as well as some more traditional Rackham illustrations. The overall tone of the collection is sophisticated and elegant, and most children will require an adult’s help to appreciate the volume’s understated charm. (Poetry. 5+)