The Twelve Days of Christmas Island by Teresa Lagrange

Title: The Twelve Days of Christmas Island

Author: Teresa Lagrange

Genre: Poetry

Publisher: Allen and Unwin

Published: 5^th October 2022

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 32

Price: $19.99

Synopsis: A fresh and distinctly Australian take on the popular Christmas song that celebrates the unique and wildly beautiful birdlife that inhabits Christmas Island.

On the first day of Christmas, the Island gave to me, an owl in a Lilly Pilly tree.

Australia’s Christmas Island is home to hundreds of species of birds, native plants and wildlife, many of which are not found anywhere else in the world. In this version of the much-loved Christmas song we celebrate the unique birds that live on this wild and remote island from the bright-red plumage of the Frigatebird to the iridescent green of the Emerald Dove.

Depicting the rare and special birds of this remote part of Australia, The Twelve Days of Christmas Island is a uniquely Australian Christmas book to be cherished and read year after year.

~*~

The twelve days of Christmas is one of the most well-known Christmas songs, and whilst the partridge in a pear tree is the most famous, there have been other versions. One newer version is based on the birds of Christmas Island in Australia. Author Teresa Lagrange has taken the tune and the remarkable bird life of this island and merged them together to create something new and exciting for readers young and old with her clever words and images that capture the beauty of these Australian birds that are native to Christmas Island as well as the pure hpy that is this delightful Christmas song.

From an owl in a Lilly-Pilly Tree to six swiftlets soaring and finally, the countdown of all the birds, resulting in way more birds for Christmas than the original version (if you add those up, you get 23 birds – or 184 if you count every day’s gift), so in this version, each day has an ever-growing number of birds! Hundreds of them – so have some fun trying to work out how many you’d wake up to on the 12^th day of Christmas including the ones from the previous eleven days. This book is very hard to read without singing the words to the tune, which is the intent and I think is a great book for all year around, but especially for Christmas so you can get an Australian Christmas taste with this book, as many Christmas books and stories are set around a wintry Christmas. Of course, the past few years have seen some lovely Australian Christmas stories and each one brings something new and beautiful to us about what Christmas in Australia is like, reflecting what our experience of this holiday is in a warmer climate than many other places that celebrate it.

I liked that this book celebrated Australian wildlife and shows its beauty using a well-known tune to help engage with readers of all ages, and illustrates the beauty of these birds that some may not know about. It’s beautifully illustrated and ca be used across a range of reading and educational activities for all age groups – perfect for a music class or the celebrate Christmas in a unique and Australian way. And, I think it will be really good to introduce kids and readers of all ages and backgrounds to a variety of native birds and where they live, and perhaps use it in an array of conversations, as it may spark all sorts of things that we can’t see on the page. Another great picture book!