Preview Shelf: New and Notable Books, by CDPL Volunteer Janice Clauser

This is the annual Christmas column listing the newest holiday books at the Crawfordsville Library. Children’s books are collected on the east wall of the main floor, while adult fiction and non-fiction are found on the upper level located on both sides of the second stack east of the elevator.

The newest children’s story is The Christmas Tugboat: How the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Came to New York City, a retelling of a true delivery by tug boat and the girl who was at the wheel in the Hudson River as police, fire boats, helicopters, and tourists welcomed the tree into New York Harbor. By George Matteson and Adele Ursone, with paintings by James Ransome, this charming book shows the Manhattan shoreline inside.

  

Naomi’s Gift, by Amy Clipston, is an Amish Christmas story set in Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania. 24-year-old Naomi has had her heart broken twice, and then her world turns upside-down. Cindy Woodsmall’s The Christmas Singing is a romance from the heart of Amish country; it is a story of second chances at love among young adults. A Lancaster County Christmas by Suzanne Fisher reflects her interest in the Anabaptist cultures of the Old Order German Baptist Brethren Church in Franklin County, Pennsylvania. 

Anne Perry’s A Christmas Homecoming is dedicated to those who face the unknown with courage.  This is another masterpiece of suspense set in Whitby, the Yorkshire fishing village where Count Dracula the vampire first touched English soil in the novel named for him. Log Cabin Christmas offers nine historical romances about pioneer holidays with its challenges and delights, penned by bestselling Christian authors. Unholy Night by Seth Grahame-Smith answers the question of who the three wise men were. How do we know they were three kings from the East? The author bends a little history, and weaves an epic tale. 

Debby Mayne and Trish Perry’s Love Finds You on Christmas Morning contains two stories named “‘Tis the Season” and “Deck the Halls”. In Shelley Gray’s Christmas in Sugarcreek, a secret from the past could ruin the Christmas that Judith and Ben should cherish for the rest of their lives.

Two books about food look helpful. First, The Food and Feasts of Jesus takes us inside the world of first-century fare, with menus and recipes by Douglas Neel and Joel Pugh. For example, always- appreciated fresh dates, when split with the stone removed and filled with cream cheese and an almond sliver, become very popular ”stuffed dates.”  The second kitchen book is Hunt, Gather, Cook:  Finding the Forgotten Feast by Hank Shaw. He doesn’t ask us to forgo the supermarket, but he does ask us to make more meals from basic ingredients, not pre-packaged foods, because “honest food need not be wild, but it must be made by hand and with love.”

Jim Cymbala offers Spirit Rising about tapping into the power of the Holy Spirit. Almost Amish by Nancy Sleeth is one woman’s quest for a slower, simpler, more sustainable life, making conscious choices to limit technology’s hold and get back to the basics, resulting in stronger, deeper relationships with family, friends, and God.