Christmas Trolls

Description

Christmas is Treva's favorite time of year, especially the preparations -- finding the perfect tree, decorating the house, and making presents for her family. But this year is different. Small things are disappearing, then some of the presents themselves. Treva is mystified, until early one morning she sees a small creature scurrying across the snow, carrying the Christmas pudding. Treva races after it into the forest where her adventures are just beginning. . . Christmas Trolls is a glorious celebration of the season as Treva confronts two irresistible trolls who don't understand Christmas. Jan Brett's exquisite paintings set against beautiful, intricate borders give readers a magical Christmas full of surprises. (Look closely at the borders for glimpses of the trolls' special little helper -- and he's not an elf!)

With over thirty four million books in print, Jan Brett is one of the nation's foremost author illustrators of children's books. Jan lives in a seacoast town in Massachusetts, close to where she grew up. During the summer her family moves to a home in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts.As a child, Jan Brett decided to be an illustrator and spent many hours reading and drawing. She says, "I remember the special quiet of rainy days when I felt that I could enter the pages of my beautiful picture books. Now I try to recreate that feeling of believing that the imaginary place I'm drawing really exists. The detail in my work helps to convince me, and I hope others as well, that such places might be real." As a student at the Boston Museum School, she spent hours in the Museum of Fine Arts. "It was overwhelming to see the room-size landscapes and towering stone sculptures, and then moments later to refocus on delicately embroidered kimonos and ancient porcelain," she says. "I'm delighted and surprised when fragments of these beautiful images come back to me in my painting." Travel is also a constant inspiration. Together with her husband, Joe Hearne, who is a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Jan visits many different countries where she researches the architecture and costumes that appear in her work. "From cave paintings to Norwegian sleighs, to Japanese gardens, I study the traditions of the many countries I visit and use them as a starting point for my children's books."

"Treva teaches a pair of greedy little trolls how to celebrate Christmas. . . a gesture they make in return on Christmas morning. . . . Fans will be enchanted, once again, with the lovingly detailed folk/Scandinavian details in Brett's bright, crisply delineated art, especially in the intriguing borders--where the trolls' charming pet hedgehogs are busy with their own related pursuits."-Kirkus Reviews