Emma Randall

The classic carol of The Twelve Days of Christmas gets a new picture-book treatment in this edition featuring the artwork of British illustrator Emma Randall. Each two page-spread of the book features a verse from the song, paired with Randall's depiction of that day's gift, as well as all the previous ones. The final spread is quite crowded with presents, and concludes on the following page with final words...

I found this presentation of The Twelve Days of Christmas cute, but not terribly memorable or impressive. Christmas carol picture-books are an annual holiday project of mine, and I have at this point read eight other traditional picture-book presentations of The Twelve Days of Christmas, and four revisionist and/or pop-up ones. After such beautiful editions as those done by Laurel Long or Jane Ray, or such adorable ones as that done by LeUyen Pham, this one just fell a little short. I did appreciate the diversity of people depicted, in those verses dealing with people, and am a little bewildered by some of the negative reaction to that diversity - some rather confused commentary on the depiction of brunettes, it seems to me - but that alone wasn't enough to make this one stand out for me. There's nothing really wrong with this version, and I think those looking for cute picture-books featuring this carol might enjoy it, but if I had to recommend a picture-book version of The Twelve Days of Christmas, I'd recommend one of the three mentioned above.… (mehr)