Certain Poor Shepherds: A Christmas Tale - Hardcover

Thomas, Elizabeth Marshall

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0763670626 ISBN 13: 9780763670627

Publisher: Candlewick, 2015

Synopsis

A dog, a goat, and their flock follow the sight and scent of a star in a beautifully illustrated, keenly observed Nativity story.

The story begins on a cold upland pasture where coarse grass and scrub cedar grew. The hour was midnight. The day was the first of winter. And the year of our Lord was not 1900 or 1600 or even 100. It was 0. On that night a white goat, Ima, and a huge, gray short-haired sheepdog, Lila, were keeping watch over a small flock of young sheep.

Bright and dazzling, a star appears behind the cedars on the eastern skyline. It is big and powerful, and it has a pure, clean scent, like something halfway between honey and water. Lila, the sheepdog, and Ima, the goat, are compelled to follow the star on a journey to a humble manger in Bethlehem, a journey beset with danger, adventure, and love. In a story alive with insight and grace, best-selling author Elizabeth Scott Thomas brings us a striking portrait of the Nativity story from the captivating point of the view of the animal kingdom.

About this title

About the Author

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas is the best-selling author of The Hidden Life of Dogs and several other successful works about anthropology and animal behavior. Her book on cat behavior, The Tribe of Tiger: Cats and Their Culture, was an international bestseller. She lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire.

Jonathan Bartlett earned his MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York. His work has been featured in the New Yorker, the New York Times, and the Atlantic, among many other venues. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Reviews

Gr 4–6—Rather than the expected humans and their crooks, the certain poor shepherds of this story are Ima and Lila, a goat and dog, respectively. Ima, the nurturer, tends to the flock by guiding them to safe paths and finding the good plants for grazing. Lila's large size makes her the ideal herder and protector from predators. Both share lonely, melancholy pasts of being separated from their own families, as well as a powerful urge to follow a host of angels that arrive with a scent emitted from a star that appears in the sky. The rest of the Nativity serves more as a plot point, as Ima and Lila meet some harrowing adventures on their journey to Bethlehem with the flock in tow: from encounters with angels, who are portrayed less as divine and celestial and more as winged beings prone to hunger and sickness, to dealings with the caravan of the Three Kings, one of whom travels with huntsmen. Illustrations, similar in style to that of printed prayer cards, appropriately capture the story's tone. VERDICT Not a typical Christmas story of a peaceful, silent night, but themes of friendship and duty shine through.—Joanna Fabicon, Los Angeles Public Library

Edition details

• Publisher: Candlewick
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0763670626
• ISBN 13: 9780763670627
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Bartlett Jonathan
• Number of pages: 160