Woodland Christmas

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University, Japan Foundation Fellow 1991-92, and the author of
Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Home and As Though Life Mattered:
Leo Kennedy’s Story.

This is a Christmas book, a winter book, and a book for all seasons.
Frances Tyrrell has taken a well-known folk song, “The Twelve Days of
Christmas,” and transformed the setting from a European castle in
centuries past to a woodland Canadian scene. The courting couple are
black bears.

Each of the 12 days is depicted on a single spread. The words are
unchanged, but the participants are transformed into a grey partridge
(with a messenger’s cap); two rock doves; three ruffled grouse; four
common loons (bursting from a northern lake in moonlight); five
cavorting river otters whose sinewy forms and golden underbellies form
the rings; six Canada geese, their nests transformed into floating
ships; seven whistling swans in a northern river valley; eight racoons
with little baskets of stars in the Milky Way; and nine red foxes
dancing on hind legs. The “lords a-leaping” are lordly moose; the
“pipers piping” are red squirrels with flutes; and the drummers
drumming are twelve beavers. The courting ends with an animal skating
party. Tyrrell’s vivid imagination and love for Canada’s wilderness
terrain and its creatures combine to create a magical book. Highly
recommended.