As a young Japanese boy recovers from a bad chill, his mother busily folds origami paper into delicate silver cranes in preparation for the boy's very first Christmas.

Show your child what Christmas is like from a new perspective in Tree of Cranes. The plot is told through a long paragraph per page, and will introduce your child to some aspects of Japanese culture. There are Japanese customs your child may have seen or heard of before, such as eating with chopsticks and wearing a kimono, but they will also see sliding bamboo doors, carp ponds, origami cranes, a wooden bathtub, and a samurai kite. Each picture looks like it could be a stand-alone painting on your wall; breathtakingly beautiful water colors with fine attention to detail, from individual strands of hair to knots in the wood and delicate ripples in the water.

The introduction to Japanese culture will likely inspire many questions from your child as you read, so be prepared to take breaks on some pages and discuss the similarities and differences between how the characters in the book live and how you live. This book also creates an opportunity to talk about how cultures celebrate different holidays. Your child may be surprised to learn that not every child around the world knows about Christmas. It will be fun for your child to think about how they might explain Christmas - or any other holiday - to someone from another culture who is unfamiliar with it, so you may want to pose that question to them.

My friend Nick was full of questions when we read Tree of Cranes. He wanted to know why the mom in the book forgot to tell the little boy about Santa Clause. I tried explaining to Nick that not all cultures celebrate with Santa Clause, but he looked at me like I was off my rocker and explained, "Santa goes to ALL the kids' house, Audra. All over the whole world. His mom should have told him that." Rather than argue with the expert, I just smiled and gave Nick a hug, happy he still believed in Santa.

--Audra