Christmas Day in the Morning by Pearl S. Buck

Shelly debuts with brightly hued cartoon scenes featuring pop-eyed country folk and deceptively silly-looking gobblers. The ploy works, too, for out of the woods struts plump and perky Pete to take on the job.

What to do? They decide to lure a bird back by appealing to its vanity, placing a want ad for a model to help sculptors creating turkey art, then “inviting” the bird to dinner. The leaves have changed, Thanksgiving nears-and the canny turkeys of Squawk Valley have decamped, leaving local residents to face the prospect of a birdless holiday. Buck’s sentimental but touching story memorably illustrates the value of a gift created with love, a gift like Buehner’s. One spread shows the Nativity scene with puffy clouds in a turquoise evening sky shaped like angel heralds, and the following memorable spread of the barn at night repeats this element with subtle clouds in the shapes of the participants in the manger setting. His deep-toned, striking illustrations are mainly set at night, with snowy farm scenes lit only by glowing lantern and shining star. The boy’s joy in planning the surprise for his father and the touching appreciation, pride, and love in the father’s gratitude are effectively conveyed in both the moving text and in Buehner’s ( Snowmen at Night, p. That year, the narrator of the story, Rob, surprised his father with a special, heart-felt gift by getting up in the middle of the night to do all the milking by himself so his father could have Christmas morning off. Early one Christmas, an older man thinks back to his best Christmas morning in the year that he was 15 and living on his family dairy farm. This longer story by Nobel Laureate Buck, originally published in 1955, is presented for the first time as an illustrated work for children.

Christmas Day in the Morning by Pearl S. Buck