Illustrated by Susan Winget
(Schiffer Publishing, 2013), hb., 54 pp.
Ages 4 & up
This is a fun book, richly illustrated, telling
the story of how the famous poem, “The Night Before Christmas” was conceived.
Apparently Clement Moore first developed and told the poem as a Christmas
present for his sick daughter. The poem was first published anonymously. Some
suggest Moore did not put his name to it because he didn’t think such popular
verse was fitting for his reputation as a scholar of biblical languages. He
told his family the story of how the ideas came together for the poem, and the
family passed the story down across generations. Then, Ms. Dinghy Sharp,
great-great-granddaughter of Clement Moore told the story to Mark Moulton who
has put it into verse reminiscent of the poem itself for this book. The result
is fascinating and fun.
I thought the story in verse was well done
and engaging. It was a delight to see pieces of the famous poem embedded in the
author’s experience the night of writing the poem, from the sleigh, to sugar
plums to a kindly old woodman who was secretly leaving firewood for families.
This woodman, who was “rotund and jolly,” had a white beard, was dressed in red
coat, and was known for telling stories to the village children gathered round
in the general store.
It was fun to me to discover that Clement
Moore was a biblical scholar (he published a Hebrew-English Lexicon), and watching
for echoes of the poem in Moore’s Christmas Eve outing was a delight. We had a
lot of fun with this book and commend it to you.
Labels: Christmas, poem