Woodland Christmas - Special Delivery and a Give Away

Here's a nice surprise in the mail box. My Woodland Christmas, first published in 1995, has been repackaged with a CD and the publishers have kindly forwarded my complimentary copies. I think this calls for a little celebration and further down this post are details of my give-away.

Woodland Christmas is the well-known Twelve Days of Christmas, but with all of the characters interpreted as Canadian wildlife: One gray partridge, Two rock doves, Three ruffed grouse, Four common loons, Five river otters,

Six Canada geese,

Seven whistling swans, Eight raccoons (maids a milking became eight raccoons gathering stars from the milky way),Nine red foxes (ladies dancing - remember Botticelli's three graces?), Ten moose-a-leaping (you can tell they are lords by their chains of office. One of them - look closely- is a knight of the garter),

Eleven red squirrels piping and (drumroll) Twelve beavers slapping the water with their tails. The courting couple are black bears and their courtship


is told in vignettes throughout the pages, concluding with a skating wedding party for all.The publishers have put together a charming CD with the song and music, very user-friendly for classroom use in teaching the carol. The book and CD are packaged together in a recloseable sleeve and will be distributed in China, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea.

My baby was on the way when I started work on this in '94 and I finished it up with him in a cot beside me. He was a useful model for the cherub bear on the title page!


Now about that give-away: Peaceable Kingdom Press published a selection of the images as Christmas cards, large and small, and I am putting together a package of them.

Leave a comment to enter and on Friday, June 18, the winner's name will be drawn.

************
June 18, shaking the names in a hat....

And the winner of the Woodland Christmas card Give Away is:
Frances of City Views, Country Dreams.
Congratulations! The bears will soon be on their way to New York.
Very best wishes to all who entered.