Carl'S Christmas

Carl'S Christmas

Join beloved babysitting Rottweiler Carl in author/artist Alexandra Day?s perfectly joyous holiday children?s picture book, Carl?s Christmas. After helping baby decorate the family tree, Carl and his charge share an adventure-filled Christmas Eve complete with window shopping, giving to the needy, and a visit with Santa Claus.Review?Carl the big black dog is babysitting once again, this time on Christmas Eve while his owners go to church...The canine and his charge have a wonderful time...The visual depth of the illustrations gives this sweet book an appeal beyond its primary audience.? ?Booklist?A delight, bound to please the good dog's old friends-- and win him plenty of new ones.? ?Publishers Weekly?Carl is the babysitter every family needs.? ?Parents MagazineAbout the AuthorAlexandra Day is the pseudonym for Sandra Louise Woodward Darling. She is the author of Good Dog, Carl and the rest of the beloved Carl books, including Carl Goes Shopping, Carl?s Christmas, Carl?s Birthday and Carl?s Snowy Afternoon. Darling was born in 1941 in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a large and close-knit family. Painting was a popular family recreation, and almost every family excursion included one or more easels and a variety of sketch pads, chalks, paints, and pencils. For four years, the family lived on a hundred-acre farm in Kentucky. Here young Sandra grew especially fond of riding and training horses, and became a dog owner for the first time. Living in the country also provided plenty of time for reading, a life-long passion. Sandra illustrated her first book in 1983: The Teddy Bears' Picnic, a popular children's song by Jimmy Kennedy. That same year, she was visiting Zurich, Switzerland, when she came across a volume of old German picture sheets, one of which featured a poodle playing with a baby who was supposed to be taking a nap. This image proved the inspiration for Good Dog, Carl. The Darlings' own dog, a Rottweiler named Toby, was the model for the book's main character. Since then, two other Darling Rottweilers have posed as Carl in the seven sequels: the late Arambarri, who was named for one of the Darlings' favorite jai alai players; and Zabala, who currently moonlights as an Our Best Friend therapy dog, visiting hospitals to cheer patients.