Read Up On It

Annotated Titles

A Northern Nativity: Christmas Dreams of a Prairie Boy
Text and paintings: William Kurelek
Toronto: Tundra Books, 2000. 46 p.
ISBN 0887760996
Ages 4 to 8

The late renowned Canadian artist William Kurelek has created a Christmas story to be enjoyed for generations. Set during the Depression of the 1930s, it tells of a boy who falls asleep wondering what it would be like if Jesus were born there and then. The boy's dreams are portrayed in Kurelek's twenty paintings, in which the holy family is seen in humble Canadian locales: an igloo, a grain elevator, an urban mission. The paintings are hauntingly moving and each is accompanied by a lyrical text. Children are sure to glean more out of the story at each reading.

–DLK

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