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What do YOU look for in an Easter Picture Book?

{guest post from author Charlotte Riggle}

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If you hop into your favorite bookstore this time of year, you’ll see shelves and displays full of picture books that feature bunnies and baskets and eggs. The books tend to be brightly colored, shiny, and sweet, like the foil-wrapped candies that fill so many Easter baskets. And I find the books, like the candies, insipid and ultimately unsatisfying.

What do I want in an Easter picture book? Start with people. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with books about rabbits and ducks and chicks and lambs. I have more than a few of them in my collection.

But Easter is not just a major holiday. It is the most holy day of the year for people all over the world. It has been so for some two thousand years. And as the centuries have passed, traditions surrounding this holy day have developed, grown, and changed.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have books that allow children to see those traditions? To see, in a book, how this holy day is celebrated in their own family?  To learn how other people celebrate the same day with customs that are different and yet the same?

I wrote Catherine’s Pascha when my own children were small, because I wanted them to have a story about a child celebrating Easter in the Orthodox Church. What a celebration it is! We go to church, not on Easter morning, but in the middle of the night. Candles and processions, incense and icons, joyous shouts of “Christ is risen!” and “Alithos anesti!” and “Cristo ha resucitado!”

In the wee hours of the morning, after the service is over, we gather in the fellowship hall to share a meal and to rejoice together with the joy of Pascha. Often the sun is rising as we drive home on Easter morning.

Catherine’s Pascha follows a little girl through the celebration as she struggles to stay awake through all the festivities. If you’re Orthodox, you can’t help but smile because you know exactly how she feels. You’ve felt it all before. If you’re not Orthodox, you’ll smile, too, as you get acquainted with Catherine and her faith tradition.

There’s another book, Tekla’s Easter, by Lillian Budd, that also follows a little girl as she celebrates Easter with her family.  Tekla lives in Sweden. In her village, the festivities leading up to Easter include bonfires and witches. (Yes, witches! At Easter!) On Easter morning, everyone dresses up in traditional costumes and rides to the mainland in a special church boat. After the service, the family returns home to break their fast with a festive meal featuring lots of eggs.

The Dance of the Eggshells by Carla Aragon also follows a little girl celebrating Easter. But in this bilingual story, the big celebration doesn’t happen on Easter itself. Instead, Libby and her brother, J.D., visit their grandparents for the Dance of the Eggshells, a traditional celebration held every year a week after Easter.

Patricia Polacco’s magnificent Chicken Sunday tells the story of two Baptist boys and their Orthodox Christian friend. The children want to buy a new Easter hat for the boys’ grandmother, Miss Eula. This story is stuffed so full of love that I can’t tell you about it in just a few sentences. It really needs a whole review to give you the flavor of it.

All four of these books embrace the richness of tradition, the love of family, and the joy of Easter. By reading them, children can see the patterns of their own faith traditions reflected in the traditions of other cultures. There’s a special kind of joy in that. Instead of cheap candy, these books provide a multicultural feast.

Charlotte Riggle is the author of Catherine’s Pascha. She lives in the Pacific Northwest in a house full of books and joy and a large fluffy white dog. Learn more about Pascha at the Catherine’s Pascha website.

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