The Christmas Story

From the gospels of Matthew and Luke

For parents searching for a truly beautiful way to relate the story of The Nativity to children, I’ve found a book that combines art from master painters coupled with gospel sequences from two of the four evangelists, namely Matthew and Luke.  The Christmas Story is itself a work of art, a true masterwork and a cut above the average Christmas picture book. Parents and children will enjoy the simple telling of the birth of the Christ Child in paintings that evoke the complex simplicity of this momentous spiritual event.

Starting with the Annunciation, the Flight into Egypt and the Birth Of the Infant, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in conjunction with Abrams Books for Young Readers has gathered poetic storytelling and the timeless art of the Limbourg Brothers, Sassetta, Gerard David, Hans Memling and others to celebrate in timeless wonder, a moving and masterful telling of the first Christmas.

Taken from the medieval and Renaissance collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the art and word images of angels, Madonnas, shepherds and the Magi bring this oldest of stories to life with corresponding gospel passages to grand and masterful effect.

A recent quote I read from a children’s picture book critic said, and I paraphrase, as relates to children’s books, only the best is sufficient to give to our children. Very well said and in this extraordinarily unique, and gloriously rich retelling of the Christmas story, that measure has been wonderfully met in word and art.

A visit to The Metropolitan Museum of Art with your children with book in hand to actually see this collective of stunning paintings, one by one, is a Christmas outing worth taking for those of you who will visit or are in the New York City area. Short of that, The Christmas Story is the next best thing to it.