We recently had several new books and a puzzle find their way into our home thanks to Raincoast Books. We love adding to our girls book library and with it being the holiday season we are always thrilled to find new winter and Christmas favourites.To have a puzzle added into the mix was a fun surprise for the girls.
Evie was instantly drawn to the bright colours of the pictures. When she realised that the puzzle was double sided she was even more thrilled because it meant double the fun for her. Though right now she is entirely biased to doing only the side with the winter scene.
The pieces of the puzzle are the perfect sizes not too big and not too small. Thanks to Evie’s little sister they do still like to “wander away” but are so much easier to find than small puzzle pieces. Each side of the puzzle has a colour border and it is relatively easy to figure out if you have the puzzle piece the right way or not thanks to the colours of the scene.
In our family. we go with the gift-giving rule of thumb “Something to wear. Something to play with. Something to read.” The girls each get one thing that goes into each of those categories. Below you will find some great book suggestions if you do the same thing. Or, perhaps you are still looking for books to include in your book Christmas advent countdown.
If we had to pick one stand-out favourite it would be Bunny Slopes. This is an interactive book, meaning your child will be asked to help Bunny out as you read the story. Help make it snow, make a ski hill, and more. Evie was in fits of giggles when we first read this book and it is still a go to she pulls off the shelf when we let her pick a book for bed time.
ADVENTURE puzzle
By Alain Grée
The vintage art of French illustrator Alain Grée is front and centre in this spirited double-sided floor puzzle. One side features a winter wonderland, while the other side reveals a bustling, sunny landscape where boats sail, a hot air balloon soars, and a road trip is in full swing. The large, thick pieces (each puzzle includes 20 shapes) are perfect for small hands, and the oversized scenes are a sight to behold!
Santa’s Sleigh Is On Its Way To Canada
By Eric James and illustrated by Robert Dunn.
It’s a magical Christmas Eve, and all of the children in your town are sleeping. Well, all of the children but you! How could you possibly fall asleep when you know Santa and his sleigh are on their way?
How to Catch an Elf
By Adam Wallace and illustrated by Andy Elkerton.
You’ve been waiting all year long, and now it’s finally Christmas Eve! Is this the year you’ll finally catch an elf? Start a new Christmas tradition with this hilarious children’s book from the creators of the New York Times best-seller How to Catch a Leprechaun! It’s Christmas Eve! Hip hip, hooray! Yes, Santa’s coming ’round. He’s bringing toys to girls and boys in every house in town.” “Some kids have tried to catch him, but Santa’s fast, you see! So they’ve set their eyes on a smaller prize, and now they’re after me! 
Waiting for Snow
By Marsha Diane Arnold and illustrated by Renata Liwska.
Badger cannot wait one more minute for it to snow. When his friend Hedgehog explains that everything comes in its time, Badger is as unconvinced and impatient as ever. But Badger’s friends have a few tricks up their sleeve to try to get the snow’s attention and distract their pal in the meantime. In the end, Badger sees there’s no trick-only waiting until at last, it’s time.
Bunny Slopes
By Claudia Rueda.
Time to tackle the bunny slope! Shake to help Bunny make it snow, tilt to help Bunny ski down the slope, and turn to help Bunny escape a cliff in his path. Is there any obstacle Bunny can’t conquer? Bringing grins and guffaws with each turn of the page, readers will find Claudia Rueda’s innovative bookmaking as entertaining as the twists and turns of a ski slope-and as satisfying as a cozy cup of hot cocoa.
Little Blue Truck’s Christmas
By Alice Schertle and illustrated by Jill McElmurry.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Little Blue Truck is spreading cheer by delivering Christmas trees to his animal friends. Can you help count each green tree from one to five and back again? Don’t forget to save one for Blue! Beep! Beep! With the gentle rhythm and signature illustration style that made Little Blue Truck a household name, Blue’s new adventure is full of holiday warmth. Sturdy cardstock pages, a compact and child-friendly text, and flashing coloured Christmas lights on the final page come together in a novelty gift book that’s sure to be the favourite treat of the season.
Pigloo
By Anne Marie Pace and illustrated by Lorna Hussey
Pigloo is an explorer. His destination? The North Pole. Big sister Paisley doesn’t think he’ll get there, but Pigloo knows that explorers have to be patient as well as brave. When Pigloo takes his sled to the top of a hill, he sets off on his expedition – with a little-unexpected help. This sweet story shows that sometimes the greatest adventures are the ones that happen in your own backyard.
Raincoast Books have very kindly provided the opportunity for us to giveaway a ADVENTURE Puzzle and Little Blue Truck’s Christmas and Pigloo. This means we will have two winners! One will win the puzzle, one will win the two books. Both are amazing prizes and we are super excited for whoever wins. Enter through the rafflecopter below by following the steps listed there.
Best of luck to all of you to enter, and merry Christmas!
Paisley would love thee books! She’s such a little reader.
My niece would love these. At 16 months, she is already following us around with books in hand for us to read to her!
Yes we have a games night but not as regular as we used to. I love adding books to our library! I like the Bunny Slopes and Waiting for snow.. they are all cute books!
I’d love to check out Little Blue Truck’s Christmas! I am a children’s librarian, and I have had great success with Little Blue Truck books being popular in storytimes. Plus I think my daughter would love it! 🙂
Look like great books!! My two boys would love these <3
Most Friday’s are family games night. I feed the kids early, so as soon as Daddy comes home we all sit down for an hour of uninterrupted games!
We LOVE books!! Would love to check out Waiting For SNow.
waiting for snow looks very cute to read. I try to build her book collection because my husband and I need to change things up
We love to do puzzles and have game nights in our house. I love adding new books to my kids library. I would love to check out “How to catch an elf”
We love to have family game night and read lots of books too! We’d love to read little blue truck.
My kids love puzzles and I think ‘how to catch an elf’ would be a fun read!
We love reading to our grandson! He’s getting to the age where he’s going to be introduced to puzzles soon! Fantastic giveaway!
I love games night with the family! Haven’t done puzzle nights yet – this would be fun too!
We don’t have a specific games night but we do love playing board games!
We play Boggle most nights! My girls are loving it right now and it expands their English vocabulary (they go to an FI school). We add French & English books to our library once/month and they love checking out books from the public library. I would love to add How to Catch an Elf to our library. They love their Elf and wish she would stay year round.
lots and lots of puzzles and books. we have an Alain Gree illustrated game that is beautiful.
We try to a family game night once a week! I love the Little blue Truck’s christmas book. My boys are big fans of all the Little Blue truck’s books.
We have game nights on Fridays:)
We have game night on the weekends
We read every night AND have regular board game nights! My son would love Waiting for Snow…although he did get his wish today!
My little guys would love these books! We don’t have game nights, but we love to read together.
We don’t usually have a games night, but we should start….and we love to read and add new books. I think the two Christmas themed books look like fun.
these are so cute!! I need!!!
We don’t have a games night yet since our daughter is only 3 but we love adding books to read to her during bedtime. Waiting for Snow is one of the books we’d love to check out!
We enjoy playing games and doing puzzles as a family, but don’t have set nights for it. We also love adding books to our library. We’ve added a bunch over the past few months. Pigloo sounds like something we’d enjoy.
We love adding books to our library. I really like the puzzle book (great graphics!) and Bunny Slope.
I can’t wait to make game night a monthly tradition. We’re starting to play games with the kids and I love it for a fun night in as a family.
I love your choices- that adventure puzzle is so pretty! I think Ari would love the Bunny Slopes book, but she loves reading so any of these would probably be a hit.
Books and puzzles are always a hit for our grandchildren. Like the look of these puzzles, they won’t get bent or fall apart.
You can never have to many Xmas books! And the puzzle looks like fun 🙂
Our oldest loves puzzles and games. He could do them all day long! These look like they would be fun additions to our library.
Not currently, but I have Nintendo Monopoly waiting for when my daughter is old enough to play!!!
We have puzzle and games night regularly at our house especially in the winter and over the holidays. Right now we love Dixit — it’s a beautiful looking game and a lot of fun for the family except the super young ones under 5.
We play games a few nights per week and probably one a month we work on a jigsaw puzzle. How To Catch An Elf looks like a super fun book!
~Jonnie