A Halifax Christmas Carol
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$19.95It is December 1918. The old world–shaped by the values of Queen Victoria and Charles Dickens– is gone and the new world now wallows in post-war chaos and darkness.
A veteran of the gas attacks and trenches, Michael Bell has returned home to a city traumatized by war and devastated by an explosion, where he finds work at The Halifax Herald writing about what he sees as the truth, about an age defined only by lawlessness, disease, and disorder.
Then, four days before Christmas, Michael finds his truth-telling efforts challenged by a small, one-legged boy who arrives at the newspaper office with a single, silver twenty-five-cent piece for “the kids.” When the boy strangely disappears, the paper’s editor, Walter Stone, sees a potential Dickensian story for a city in desperate need of hope. He assigns Michael and new reporter Tess Archer the job of finding the boy and telling his story–all before the Christmas Eve edition.
At first, Michael objects, believing such stories to be dangerous lies in the face of the dark truths. However, after a mysterious dream of his mother leads to difficult questions, he accepts the assignment, if only to prove small acts of generosity are meaningless in the face of a growing darkness. Yet, as Michael follows his leads through an array of the city’s desperate people, he is increasingly haunted by the hidden meaning of his dream and soon realizes understanding will only come if he finds the boy. But for Michael and the city, time is fast running out.
Filled with a cast of compelling characters and vivid images, A Halifax Christmas Carol tells the story of a true age of darkness and the transformative power of hope.
Imperfect Perfect Christmas
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$8.95Andrea Doucette lives in a fishing village in Nova Scotia. It’s Christmas Eve and everyone in her house is feeling excited and happy-except for Andrea who is feeling very gloomy. Then, a number of things take place that make Andrea wonder weather this Christmas is going to be quite fine-or maybe end up being the worst disaster of all.
Santa Never Brings Me a Banjo
Artist: Murray BainPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$12.95Santa never brings me a banjo
And I can never understand why
Every Christmas Eve I see it in my dreams
But every Christmas morning I cry…The celebrated holiday song from multi-talented and multiple-award-winning Halifax-based roots musician David Myles is now available as a bright and fun children’s picture book. Young David writes frantic letters to Santa every year, requesting a banjo, but to no avail: “How does he miss / the one thing on my list / in the letter that I sent to him?” Follow the ups and downs of the holiday season with David, his furry friends, and his family, as he pines for his most-wished-for holiday gift.
Featuring illustrations from the animation studio that created the song’s well-loved YouTube music video, a special holiday message from David Myles, and original sheet music for those who wish to play along, Santa Never Brings Me A Banjo is sure to inspire many a holiday singalong.
Christmas in Atlantic Canada Stories True and False, Past and Present
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95Some of the most comforting and enjoyable parts of Christmas are the heartwarming traditions we celebrate year after year. But do you ever wonder where those traditions came from? Who started them, and how did they become so ingrained? From dragging trees indoors to decorate them to bundling up to take in a Santa Claus parade, prolific folklorist David Goss traces the history of the holiday in our region from its earliest celebration—possibly 1604—to modern times.
Using historical records, diaries, and old newspapers, as well as a few fictional short stories, he documents the fascinating narrative of how Christmas in Atlantic Canada has been marked, both religiously and secularly.
Includes 50 images. Features a foreword by Gerry Bowler, author of Santa Claus, A Biography and The World Encyclopedia of Christmas.
Winter Atlantic Canadian Stories
Editor: Dan SoucoupPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95Some Canadians greet winter with a cold shoulder, while others celebrate the snow and ice. One thing we can all agree on: winter brings ideal reading weather. Spanning decades, this collection from author and anthology editor Dan Soucoup (The Finest Tree) shares the inherent warmth of the chilly season in a uniquely Atlantic Canadian way–with grit, good humour, and moving sentimentality.
From Thomas Raddall’s 1910 story of a young widow lost in a snowstorm on a frozen river to Alden Nowlan’s retelling of a Mi’kmaw legend about a man who loathed winter, these stories explore every face–good and bad–of the wintry season. A blend of fact and fiction spanning the region, from Labrador to Yarmouth, Winter: Atlantic Canadian Stories brings voices old and new together to celebrate the season of natural storytelling.
Vintage Christmas Holiday Stories From Rural PEI
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95Travel back in time to when Christmas was a simple affair: children were content to receive an apple, an orange, or a piece of barley candy in their stockings; clothes, meals, and decorations were all homemade; and it was time spent with family–not expensive gifts–that warmed hearts during the holiday season.
This nostalgic collection recalls Christmas celebrations of the 1930s, ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s, transporting readers to the unheated farmhouse bedrooms, thrilling “bigcity” department stores, and cozy barn stalls of rural Prince Edward Island. It turns out one thing has not changed: the most memorable part of any Christmas cannot be bought and sold.
Includes eighteen nonfiction stories, collected and retold by scriptwriter, playwright, and historical author Marlene Campbell.
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Mary Morrison’s Cape Breton Christmas
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95The Halifax Chronicle-Herald calls award-winning comedian Bette MacDonald “a superlative actress, a polished ad libber…making the audience howl with delight by a lift of her eyebrows, a shift of elbow or a single word.”
For years, Bette has delighted audiences with her irreverent and lovable Cape Breton character Mary Morrison. Now Mary is here to entertain readers with her stories and memories of the Christmas season. Mary Morrison’s Cape Breton Christmas is a treasury of all things holiday, including Mary’s advice for coping with family, gift-giving dos and don’ts, and even her favourite seasonal recipes. This new softcover edition of the popular books is a hilarious and colourful collection of Cape Breton Christmas humour.
The Finest Tree and other Christmas Stories from Atlantic Canada
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$16.95Celebrate the holiday season with over twenty tales—true and make-believe—of Atlantic Canadian Christmases, past and present.
Edited by Dan Soucoup (A Short History of Halifax), The Finest Tree showcases memories, traditions, and stories from all four Atlantic provinces. PEI’s L. M. Montgomery brings Christmas to a group of train-bound strangers, while Gary L. Saunders turns to Christmastime to escape September writers’ block in Newfoundland; Beatrice MacNeil details her magical journey to Christmas Mass in Cape Breton, while in rural New Brunswick Michael O. Nowlan and his father take their annual trip to town. Featuring these stories of homespun Christmas tradition and cheer from Atlantic Canada’s finest authors, and plenty more, The Finest Tree will warm your heart on the coldest winter nights.
To Every Thing There is a Season A Cape Breton Christmas Story
Artist: Peter RankinPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$14.95It is Christmastime in Cape Breton, and a young boy describes the anticipation his family feels toward the holiday and most of all, to the homecoming of his older brother, Neil, working in Ontario on the “lake boats.”
To Every Thing There is a Season was first published in 1977, yet its impact remains powerful to this day. This new softcover edition features 20 of Peter Rankin’s splendid illustrations, a perfect complement to a classic Canadian Christmas story.
The Christmas Secret An Atlantic Canadian Christmas Reader
Editor: Dan SoucoupPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$16.95The Christmas Secret is a homemade collection featuring twenty tales of Atlantic Christmases past and present, plucked from the memories and traditions of famed purveyors of local lore. This edition features a veritable buffet of Atlantic holiday celebrations and experiences, from the heartwarming holidays inside a lighthouse on Bon Portage Island to a struggling Cape Breton coal mining community, to the spirit of “old Christmas” in Island Cove, Newfoundland.
A Bluenose Twelve Days of Christmas
Artist: Doretta GroenendykPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95On the fifth day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me
Five Highland flings!
Four coal seams,
Three lobster traps,
Two fiddle tunes,
And a Bluenose in at Pier Three.“The Twelve Days of Christmas” gets a taste of Nova Scotian revelry in this energetic retelling by storyteller Bruce Nunn. With Doretta Groenendyk’s charming and funny illustrations, readers young and old will want to read–and sing!–this version of the carol every Christmas.
A Christmas Dollhouse
$18.95Dot’s family is having a hard time. Her father has work, but her mother is terribly sick, and there is barely enough to make ends meet—and definitely not enough money for a lot of presents this Christmas. In the window of the town’s drugstore, Dot sees a beautiful dollhouse that is being raffled away. But her family doesn’t even have a dollar to spend there so she can enter the contest.
A Christmas Dollhouse is about hope in the face of hardship and about communities gathering close and taking care of each other. Set in Nova Scotia during the Great Depression, this is a story that will appeal to anyone who believes in the magic of Christmas.
Best of Buddy The Bluenose Reindeer Buddy the Bluenose Reindeer and Buddy the Bluenose Reindeer and the Boston Christmas Tree Adventure
Artist: Brenda JonesPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$18.95Both Buddy books—truly the best of—now in one handsome edition!
First heard on CBC radio, Buddy the Bluenose Reindeer became an instant Maritime Christmas classic. Buddy the Bluenose Reindeer is sad because, despite his best efforts, he just can’t fit in with Nick Klaus’s fishing crew on the South Shore of Nova Scotia. Santa, that normally jolly proprietor of Christmas cheer, is worried because his star performer, the famous Rudolph, is sick with a bad cold! How will Santa and Buddy set everything all right?
In Buddy the Bluenose Reindeer and the Boston Christmas Tree, the search for the perfect Christmas tree to send to Boston isn’t going well, and Buddy the Bluenose Reindeer is called on to help. Of course, with his nose so blue and his aim so true, Buddy easily finds the right tree. Little does everyone know that that’s the easy part.
Packed full of playful puns and perfect for old and young listeners alike, Buddy’s adventures are real treats to read and share aloud.
Christmas with the Rural Mail
Artist: Maud LewisPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$12.95A gentle poem describing the journey of a mailsleigh through rural Nova Scotia at Christmas time, delivering packages and parcels to children, Christmas with the Rural Mail is a holiday classic. The poem is carefully crafted to fit Maud Lewis’s colourful paintings, and the mailsleigh passes children skiing and tobogganing, oxen and Clydesdale horses pulling heavy loads, and the train station, among other classic rural winter scenes.
Lewis’s artwork is ideal for babies and toddlers, with its bright colours and simple forms, and the paintings and poem together perfectly evoke Christmases gone by. This is a sturdy board book edition great for young readers.
A Victorian Nova Scotia Christmas
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$15.95It’s Christmas Eve in the fair town of Amherst, Nova Scotia, and sparkling snowflakes crown the pointed roofs of houses as stately as Victorian ladies. It has been a day of well-loved traditions: visits to the ill and elderly, candlights services, and a favourite story told by father at the fireside.
And upstairs in the attic, a little girl has just found a long-lost treasure that will make tomorrow a Christmas to remember for years to come.
Molly Simmons, author and illustrator of A Victorian Nova Scotia Christmas, was that little girl in the attic, and it is through the eyes of a child that she rekindles all the warmth, wonder, and tradition of a time gone by.
This is a magical tale that speaks to the child in everyone, with exquisitely simple prose, delightful drawings, and cherished family recipes that offer a gift that will last for years to come.
Cape Breton’s Christmas, Book 7 A 7th Treasury of Stories and Memories
Publisher: Breton Books$19.95Here are 50 Christmas stories from the heart of Cape Breton. Now a genuine holiday tradition, this seventh book of lasting memories and terrific storytelling will continue to delight young and old throughout the year. Preserving priceless moments, this is a book of intimate adventures, indoors and out—of the kind usually remembered only briefly at Christmastime, and then gone. Gathered to be read again and savoured, Cape Breton’s Christmas is an all-new and lasting book to enjoy and to share.
Cape Breton’s Christmas, Book 6 A Treasury of Stories and Memories
Editor: Ronald CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$19.95A CHRISTMAS TRADITION IN BOOK FORM, Book 6 of Cape Breton’s Christmas is a fresh annual gathering of warmth, joy, and family love—50 well-told memories and stories shot through with sparks of humour, tears of longing, and small flames of faith. Good reading year-round, this Christmas tradition brings together Cape Breton writers—both well-known and lately inspired—presenting sparkling seasonal gems for readers of all ages. A rare collection that preserves some of the best of what it is to be human. This generous book will last.
Cape Breton’s Christmas, Book 5 A Treasury of Stories and Memories
Editor: Ronald CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$19.95Now an annual holiday tradition, this fifth collection of Cape Breton’s Christmas delivers a batch of memories and rich holiday stories rooted in a beloved island. Here are the moments that take you back, the stories that encourage us to be all we can be. From family gatherings to loneliness to the joy of getting home in time—from parents who give even when they seem to have nothing—this is a generous book that will last.
Cape Breton’s Christmas, Book 4
Editor: Ronald CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$19.95The Cape Breton’s Christmas series has become an annual holiday joy! This fourth collection continues to mine the memories and stories of Christmas experiences on this remarkable island. From humorous events to heartbreaking memories, these stories from the heart of Cape Breton keep Christmas alive all year long. And once again, ten percent of all sales from Cape Breton’s Christmas, Book 4 will be donated to Feed Nova Scotia. An extra reason to enjoy this long-lasting gift for home and friends.
Cape Breton’s Christmas, Book Three A Treasury of Stories and Memories
Editor: Ronald CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$19.95Once again, the heart of Cape Breton radiates through in the all-new Book Three of Cape Breton’s Christmas — another lasting collection of Cape Breton memories and stories, including tales of compassion, hilarious events, touching family gatherings and Christmas far from home — plus memories of the sacrifices that made the holidays work. For anyone who loves wit, celebration and the generosity of Maritimes life — these are stories to be read again and again.
Cape Breton’s Christmas, Book 2
Editor: Ron CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$19.95On the heels of the best-selling Book One, Cape Breton’s Christmas — Book Two is a rich collection of stories and memories from nearly fifty Cape Bretoners, including Clive Doucet, Jess Bond and Sheldon Currie. From a Christmas tree in the coal mine to Christmas on the battlefield, from joyous memories to reminders that break the heart, celebrations in Cape Breton and far from home — Cape Breton’s Christmas—Book Two is a gift of the season’s renewal and the island’s generosity and strength.
Snow Softly Falling Holiday Stories from Prince Edward Island
Editor: Richard LemmPublisher: Acorn Press$19.95A call was sent out asking writers to submit unpublished short stories for a fiction anthology featuring writers with a significant P.E.I. connection. Ther qualification was that it the story be about the holidays. PEI is strong on tradition, which includes out-migration and immigration. Thus, its culture and demographics are changing, and these PEI writers both are Island-born and hail from away.
The result is a collection of stories, essays and poems that will resonate with readers from all backgrounds.
An Island Christmas Reader (Updated edition)
Artist: Dale McNevinPublisher: Acorn Press$17.95An Island Christmas Reader is a book about Christmas past and present on Prince Edward Island. In 22 stories and essays, David Weale combines reminiscences of Islanders with his own musings to rekindle the memory of Christmas, where imagination and magic work hand in hand to create the “unsullied wonder of childhood vision.”
Acadian Christmas Traditions
Publisher: Acorn Press$19.95Based on written sources and interviews with Acadians throughout the Maritimes, Acadian Christmas Traditions offers a fascinating look at the evolution of Christmas. This very readable book shows how customs, both spiritual and secular, take hold in families, in villages, and in a culture as a whole. Georges Arsenault, the well-known historian and folklorist, examines all the aspects of the feast of Christmas, from midnight mass to holiday foods. As he chronicles the cultural changes that have taken place over the centuries, he proves that Acadian Christmas today is the result of a wonderful blending of old, new, and borrowed traditions.
True Meaning of Crumbfest
Artist: Dale McNevinPublisher: Acorn Press$11.95“Winner of the Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature; over 17,000 copies in print; animated Christmas special on TELETOON, with the spin-off series Eckhart The True Meaning of Crumbfest is the story of a curious little mouse named Ekhart, who sets off to discover the truth about that most abundant time of year called “”Crumbfest,”” when bounteous crumbs miraculously appear in the old Prince Edward Island farmhouse in which he lives. Much anthologized – particularly by CBC Radio’s “Fireside Al”- this a heartwarming tale of the magic that happens when the “Outside” and the “Inside” come together.”
Sleigh Tracks in New Snow Maritime Christmas Stories
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$18.95“The morning was damp and we were feeling Christmas in the air, seeing and smelling it in the trees, as our feet crunched across new snow to where a wire fence stood between our fields and the railway tracks. It was there we saw a fir tree standing, more beautiful than any I can remember. Its limbs were full, well shaped and scented, and it stood proud and tall as though waiting for us.”
Sleigh Tracks in New Snow is a collection of Christmas stories set mostly in rural New Brunswick – principally the Miramichi Region – in a bygone day and age. The stories range from the early 1950s to the 21st century, as Curtis recounts the sweet old Christmases of his boyhood and more modern incarnations of the holiday. In this entertaining book, Curtis honours the deeply held traditions and rituals that made celebrating Christmas such a special time for his family and community.
During the author’s childhood, Christmas meant sleigh rides with horses and jingling harness bells, fresh cut forest Christmas trees and intense blizzards that blocked all roads for days. Winter in a rural community required hardiness, generosity, and sacrifice, qualities that were intensified during the Christmas season. Curtis tells how a grandmother sacrificed to ensure a happy celebration for her family, about the arrival of his sister while he and his father searched the woods for a beautiful fir tree to be trimmed in their farmhouse parlour, and the efforts of a prodigal son to get home for Christmas after years of absence. The holiday season also included the magic of skating on a frozen river with a bonfire of burning cattails, the excitement of the school concert, and the solemnity of a church service. These stories reflect an innocent time when truth, heart and honesty were always central to the celebration of Christmas.
Wayne Curtis was born in Keenan, New Brunswick, in 1943. He was educated in the local schoolhouse and at St Thomas University. He has won the Richards, the Woodcock and the CBC Drama awards and written for The National Post and The Globe and Mail. In 2005 Wayne received an honorary degree from St Thomas University. He divides his time between his cabin on the Miramichi and Fredericton. This is his sixteenth book.
Santa Never Brings Me A Banjo
Artist: Murray BainPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95The celebrated holiday song from multi-talented and multiple-award-winning Halifax-based roots musician David Myles is now available as a bright and fun children’s picture book. Young David writes frantic letters to Santa every year, requesting a banjo, but to no avail: “How does he miss / the one thing on my list / in the letter that I sent to him?” Follow the ups and downs of the holiday season with David, his furry friends, and his family, as he pines for his most-wished-for holiday gift.
Featuring illustrations from the animation studio that created the song’s well-loved music video, a special holiday message from David Myles, and original sheet music for those who wish to play along, Santa Never Brings Me A Banjo is sure to inspire many a holiday singalong.
Mary Morrison’s Cape Breton Christmas
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$24.95The Halifax Chronicle-Herald calls award-winning comedian Bette MacDonald “a superlative actress, a polished ad libber…making the audience howl with delight by a lift of her eyebrows, a shift of elbow or a single word.”
For years, Bette has delighted audiences with her irreverent and lovable Cape Breton character Mary Morrison. Now Mary is here to entertain readers with her stories and memories of the Christmas season. Mary Morrison’s Cape Breton Christmas is a treasury of all things holiday, including Mary’s advice for coping with family, gift-giving dos and don’ts, and her favourite seasonal recipes. A hilarious and colourful collection of Cape Breton Christmas humour brought to life with over 25 photographs.
Atlantic Canadian Christmas Reader
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$15.95An Atlantic Canadian Christmas Reader brings together twenty-nine wonderful stories that illustrate some of the region’s unique and time-honoured holiday traditions,from fictional accounts of contemporary family gatherings and feasts to nineteenth-century tales of Christmas at sea. Others describe more modest celebrations, from times when food and money were scarce, and during war years when the only bounty to be found was in the true spirit of the season.
With work by well-known regional storytellers like Helen Creighton, Evelyn Richardson, David Weale, Clary Croft, and Bruce Nunn, and an introduction by Cape Breton novelist Lesley Crewe, An Atlantic Canadian Christmas Readeris the perfect way to add a little Christmas cheer to your bookshelf.
A Maritime Christmas
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$15.95The Magic of Christmas is always felt strongly in the Maritimes. This collection of yuletide stories is a mixture of true seasonal remembrances and fictional imaginings of the holiday season. Contributions are from over 20 Maritime writers, and touch on all the things that make Christmas so special: traditions, reunions with family and friends, the humour, and sometimes, the hardships. Some of the collection’s contributions are familiar, many are heartwarming, but every story shares the same spirit of the season.
This yuletide collection includes many well-known writers such as Harry Thurston, Steve Vernon, David Goss, Chris Mills, Heidi Jardine Stoddart, David Divine, and more.
Magical Christmas Light of Old Nova Scotia
Artist: Yolanda PoplawskaPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$12.95Nova Scotia native Bruce Nunn is a popular storyteller on CBC Radio and Television and the author of a number of best-selling books including History With a Twist, More History With a Twist, 59 Stories, The Magical Christmas Light of Old Nova Scotia, and Buddy the Bluenose Reindeer. Yolanda Poplawska is an illustrator and graphic designer living in Halifax.
