Holiday books from Atlantic Canada

During the past 33 years, St. John's businessman Bruce Templeton has devoted the month of December to visiting children and assisting Santa Claus. At school parties, country clubs, or in the critical-care unit of hospitals, young people ask him profound questions about Santa Claus and the true meaning of Christmas. Templeton has collected hundreds of stories and questions during more than 1000 visits - some of them curious, some happy, and some heartbreaking. In his memoir of three decades he sh …

Bestselling author Frank Galgay offers up this collection of his personal favourites from a wide variety of Canadian writers. Spanning 160 years, Classic Christmas Stories includes heartwarming tales of Christmases from pastoral Canadian towns, to hustling and bustling cities where the Christmas spirit can often be woefully hard to find.

The stories and anecdotes illustrate how the season has changed in meaning and value with the march of time and contain allegories of the joys of gift-giving …

The 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.

On 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.

Natalie's finished her Christmas list. It's really quite perfect with one little twist: A remote control scooter, some candy to share and, if it's no trouble, a big polar bear.

THE SECOND INSTALLMENT in the Gus and Isaac series, Ho Ho NO Christmas! follows the adventures of Gus the seagull and Isaac the bob-tailed cat in their attempt to save Christmas and help Santa, who has become lost in the snow and wind, land his sleigh in a snowstorm. With the help of their trusty spudgel, they fly to Santa’s rescue and learn the valuable lesson that Christmas is not just about receiving but more importantly about the gift of giving that should last all through the year.

Dot'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 …

Mother of three young children, Doretta Groenendyk teaches art to young people, is active in her children's school, and participates widely in the Nova Scotia artistic community, doing workshops around the province, including Word on the Street in Halifax. Based in Canning, NS, Doretta is the illustrator of Bounce and Beans and Burn, with text by Shannon Murray, which was shortlisted for the PEI Book Award in 2008, and I'm Writing a Story, her first book featuring her own stories and illustratio …