Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Maple & Willow's Christmas Tree
Picture Book Series
For ages
Penguin, 2016 ISBN: 978-0399167560
Maple and her little sister Willow love winter with its snow, sledding adventures and, of course, Christmas! This year the girls are going to have a real Christmas tree. They go out to the Christmas tree farm and look around, hoping to find the prefect tree. The tree Maple finds is, in Willow’s opinion, too big. Willow’s choice is too small. Then the sisters find the tree that is perfect, the tree that is the “best Christmas tree in the whole wide world.”
The tree is taken into the house and the girls start decorating it, when Maple starts to sneeze. When she goes outside to play she feels fine, but when she comes back into the house the sneezing resumes. It is clear that Maple is allergic to their Christmas tree and so the tree has to go outside.
Willow is peeved that her big sister is “allergic to Christmas,” and is annoyed that she has “ruined Christmas.” She even says at much. Later, when she is in bed, Willow starts to feel sad that she hurt her sister’s feelings. She shouldn’t have said those hurtful things.
This wonderful picture book perfectly captures the way in which two sisters first lose, and then regain, the true spirit of Christmas when their Christmas tree plans go awry. Even the best laid plans can backfire, it is how we respond to the disappointment that matters.
This is one of the titles in a series of delightful books about Maple and Willow.
