Christmas Is Here, by Lauren Castillo

(Hardcover, 32 pages, first published in 2010) Redeemed Reader Review (find this review at Redeemed Reader here): "The only text in this sweetly illustrated picture book comes from the KJV version of Luke 2, a familiar text even to many children. Wordless pictures show a young family (dad, mom, boy, babe-in-arms, dog) walking towards a live nativity scene one snowy night. As they near the scene, the words from Luke 2 transport them (and the reader) back (mentally) 2000 years to the night the shepherds heard that most wonderful of proclamations: For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. As the family (and reader) draw close to the stable, the background shifts, and once more we are in 21st-century America looking at a reenactment while a choir stands around singing. Many picture book retellings of the first Christmas show merely a Westernized imagining of the “actual” event or attempt to portray what the Christ child actually looked like. Ca