"The snow fell and fell. When Johan came out on the front steps in the morning, he stood there a moment and just looked at it... It was so quiet - almost as if the whole world lay dead under a blanket of snow - the whole farm, the whole country, the whole of Sweden, the whole world! Not truly dead, however. Somewhere far away, a sound was heard."

So begins this beautifully-told and beautifully-illustrated picture-book, originally published in Astrid Lindgren's native Sweden as När bäckhultarn for till stan. Johan, who lives on a small farm with his parents, is terribly cast down by the death of their only cow, Emma. Not only is this a great economic blow for his impoverished family, but it is also an emotional loss, as Emma had been a beloved companion. "She had been so alive... and so kind," Johan recalls, thinking of their fun together in the green of summer. "But she was dead now. Completely dead." Filled with a sense of resentment, and of anger at God, Johan wonders why their only cow should have been taken, when their neighbor Peter Jonsson, who has so many cows, never seems to have suffered any misfortune. Peter Jonsson, in the meantime, heads to town for a day of indulgence, returning home late at night, dead drunk and toting a baby calf he had just purchased. Then the calf is lost (tossed off the sleigh) in a moment of mad (drunken) misunderstanding, and is found the next day by Johan, who believes that God has answered his entreaties. When the truth is uncovered, what will it mean for Johan, and for this Christmas calf he has found...?

A lovely, lovely book, A Calf for Christmas has all the hallmarks of author Astrid Lindgren's work: a respect for young people, their feelings and their intellectual capacity; and a commitment to a humane kind of realism, in which characters display significant flaws (such as drinking too much) but have significant redeeming qualities (such as kindness to children). I really appreciated the lyrical quality of the writing here - kudos to translator Barbara Lucas! - and the sensitivity Lindgren displays, in exploring Johan's feelings, both about Emma and about God. Given that the latter has practically disappeared from children's books published by mainstream presses here in the US (despite not disappearing from the majority's of young people's lives), I found that particularly welcome, and had to smile with sympathy at the hero's reasoning, in this regard. When he opines that "he knew very well that Dad was right when he said the little calf could not replace Emma. But that didn't really matter. You couldn't ask that God throw down a full-grown cow," I almost laughed aloud. There is this way that Lindgren captures the simultaneously mistaken and wise nature of child thinking here that is immensely appealing.

As wonderful as the text here is - and it is a true pleasure! - the artwork by illustrator Marit Törnqvist is every bit as lovely. She captures the pale beauty of the Swedish countryside in winter, and contrasts it nicely with the warmer tones of interior scenes, and red farm buildings. Her people and animals are marvelously captured, and full of emotion. Here is the scene at the beginning of the book, as Johan looks out onto a snowy world:



And here is Johan with his Christmas calf:



Just beautiful! Highly, highly recommended, to anyone who appreciates well-written, beautifully-illustrated picture-books, although potential readers should be aware that this is a text-heavy example of the form, and that while this is Christmasy in its setting and spirit, it isn't particularly Christmassy in its story-line. ( )