Lucy & Tom's Christmas (Picture Puffin S.)

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Lovely time for read aloud with what I think are British traditions of Christmas pudding (Lucy and Tom stir), making cards, how they decorate and even what they give as gifts to each family member. With each review, I provide a Cleanliness Report, mentioning any objectionable content I come across so that parents and/or conscientious readers (like me) can determine beforehand whether they want to read a book or not. She also collaborated with her daughter, Clara Vulliamy, on the Dixie O'Day series; which saw Shirley with an illustrator for the first time with Shirley writing the text and Clara creating the illustrations. Shirley Hughes has won the Other Award, the Eleanor Farjeon Award, and the Kate Greenaway Medal for Illustration twice, for Dogger in 1977 and for Ella's Big Chance in 2003.

I grew up with Lucy and Tom in the late Seventies and early Eighties, so revisiting the book now feels rather like looking at my own childhood Christmases, laid out in lovely thick gouache. The page where we see the presents that Lucy and Tom have both bought for their families raised a particular chuckle of recognition. Content surprises are super annoying, especially when you’re 100+ pages in, so here’s my attempt to help you avoid that! Hughes is so prolific and I highly recommend seeking out her picture books- not always so easy to find on this side of the ocean.Her books include the wordless picture book Up and Up , collection of rhymes and poems Out and About , and for the very young The Nursery Collection . She wrote two novels for older children, Hero on a Bicycle , about a 13-year-old Italian boy during the occupation of Florence, and Whistling in the Dark , set during the Liverpool Blitz. It's the first Christmas book I've ever read that showed the children "posting" their letters to Santa by burning them in the fireplace. Shirley Hughes is a great loss to children’s literature and this, of all her books, seems to me one that will last.

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Shirley Hughes was born in West Kirby, near Liverpool, in 1927, and studied fashion and dress design at Liverpool Art School, before continuing her studies at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford. The illustrations are so detailed and the story is very cute with hilariously accurate depictions of children’s emotions. In 1930s Liverpool, young Bronwen and Dylan find kindness from an unexpected source when they are frightened by what they think is a ghost on Christmas Eve.

The quiet joys of Christmas preparations and the day itself, with great sympathy for a child's perspective. My boys found it inspirational--and pointed out that we did Christmas crackers earlier in the week rather than at Christmas dinner. We talk about the differences in the way these children celebrate Christmas in England and they celebrate Christmas in the states. Hughes has a lovely endearing style to her drawing - I will certainly be reading and collecting many other titles from her. A rubber in the shape of a dog and a ‘smart bow-tie on elastic’ for dad, a ‘comb in a case for Granny with A for Alison on it (because that’s Granny’s name)’ and best of all ‘a pen for Lucy which changes into different colours’.

She won the Kate Greenaway Medal twice and was awarded the OBE for her distinguished service to children's literature. Perhaps it's the spirit of the season that permeates this book, even for those of us in the Southern Hemisphere. I used to read it every Christmas to my children when they were young and now I'm reading it again to my grandchildren. Shirley Hughes’s illustrations have the same effect as discovering an old reel of cine film buried in the loft. I'm sure I get more pleasure from it every year that passes, enjoying the wonderful illustrations and the simple story of a Christmas with family and friends together.This wonderful heartwarming story was read to me as a child and brings back so many happy memories as I now have the privilege of reading it to my niece. Shirley Hughes is the illustrator of more than two hundred children’s books and has won many prestigious awards, including the Kate Greenaway Medal twice. She was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was the first recipient of BookTrust's Lifetime Achievement Award. Yes, it is set in time, with ethnicity and class embedded, but is for me a beloved classic, and à compassionate and keenly observed account.

Didn’t realize that until adulthood :) bought this book as soon as my daughter was born to read to her each Christmas season. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

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