Ever Ready: The St. Nicholas Day Snow

Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2018 is in its 5th year and was founded by Valarie Budayr from Jump Into A Book and Mia Wenjen from PragmaticMom. Their mission is to raise awareness of the ongoing need to include kids’ books that celebrate diversity in home and school bookshelves while also working diligently to get more of these types of books into the hands of young readers, parents and educators.

It's an honor to participate again in this wonderful event as a book reviewer for the MCBD event.

"The St. Nicholas Day Snow" is written by award winning Charlotte Riggle and published by

Phoenix Flair Press.

Charlotte, a gifted writer, has written an endearing picture book geared for ages 4-8. It’s a story about love, friendship, family, traditions and St. Nicholas. The story and characters have an Orthodox Christian setting but the story will capture readers’ interest of all cultural and religious backgrounds. It makes a terrific gift for that special little one in your life. I appreciated having the author's input for parts of this book review.
Charlotte is a Medallion Silver Sponsor for 2018 MCBD.

There are several story lines that run concurrently throughout this book. It revisits familiar
characters, Catherine and Elizabeth from Charlotte's first book in 2015 “Catherine’s Pascha.”

There is a sense of connectedness between the two stories. While “Catherine’s Pascha” introduces the reader to the traditions associated with the Orthodox Easter, her newest book features St. Nicholas, a most beloved saint in the Orthodox Church, after Theotokos. Additional pieces of information on St. Nicholas can be found at the end of the book as well as a recipe for snowball cookies.

It’s the night before Saint Nicholas Day and Catherine is excited about Elizabeth coming over for the night. The girls bake cookies, catch snowflakes while watching a snowstorm develop. Threads of St. Nicholas's traditions are woven throughout the story while readers discover why Catherine’s friend Elizabeth is spending the holiday with her and her family and why she is so worried. The parallel story provides a great opportunity to use a reading strategy- making predictions. Use of this strategy does help keep the reader engaged continually making connections to the text and thinking ahead. In addition, I found the story to be the perfect springboard for discussion on respectfulness and sensitivity to others who may celebrate traditions differently than you. Catherine and Elizabeth discover that there isn’t just one way to celebrate the holiday and there can be a way to merge traditions while still being respectful of differences.

The story’s format and illustrations seamlessly go hand. Charlotte was quite fortunate to collaborate again in her second book with the talented illustrator, R.J. Hughes.

They both share the same vision that picture books are more than just books that have pictures but are a way for the words and images to work together to play off each other. The words and pictures reflect different aspects of the story.

The illustrations for the main story are realistic and colorful. In addition on the left of each page includes chronological pictures of churches dedicated to St. Nicholas around the world with an image of St. Nicholas that reflects one way the country sees him. On the right of each page there is also an illustration bubble that tells a parallel story of Elizabeth’s Nana who is sick at the hospital with Elizabeth’s parents at her bedside.

I liked how inclusive the book’s illustrations are by showing Elizabeth who has mobility and disability issues using crutches and a wheelchair. But neither of these issues seem to interfere with her friendship with Catherine or affect her participation in activities during their two day sleepover. Elizabeth’s character and background are more developed in this book over the first book.

It gives Charlotte a great deal of joy when she hears Orthodox families and parishes have embraced her books, homeschooled moms have used her books as part of their curriculum, Sunday school teachers have read her books to their class and parents tell her how much the books mean to their children.

Charlotte wears many different hats in her life. She is a wife, mother, picture book author, a technical writer, and a blogger. Her first picture book "Catherine's Pascha was a finalist in the 2015 Best Book Awards. A technical newsletter she wrote was honored by the Society of Technical Communicators and her poetry has been recognized by the Southern Literary Festival.

Since some of her own children faced special needs growing up Charlotte has naturally became an advocate for children with disabilities. Now that her children are grown, she’s sharing what she’s learned on her blog website https://charlotteriggle.com/about/
In addition she posts book reviews and a collection of vegan recipes.