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Ten year old reader Joey Kelly won a review copy of John Heffernan and Kate Durack’s Two Tales of Brothers from Ancient Mesopotamia and in this charming radio interview on ABC New England  he reviews the book in a most detailed and lovely way. Really worth listening to.

Those fabulous reviews just keep on coming for John Heffernan and Kate Durack’s gorgeous Two Tales of Brothers from Ancient Mesopotamia! The latest is in the new issue(July) of the prestigious children’s literature magazine, Magpies. The review is not available online, but here is a short extract:

Two Tales of Brothers is told with lively, colourful language, and illustrated by Kate Durack in rich, vibrant colours. The beautifully-designed book will appeal to children from mid-primary school to upper secondary.

John Heffernan and Kate Durack’s gorgeous Two Tales of Brothers from Ancient Mesopotamia just keeps collecting those great reviews! The latest is from ReadPlus blog.

Here’s a short extract:

These two stories tell of rivalry and bitterness, of forgiveness and love, of bravery and allegiance. The second story tells of Gilgamesh and Enkidu going out of the city to destroy a huge monster. This marvellous story full of blood and gore will appeal to primary people.
The illustrations are bright and vivacious, reflecting the images found in the temples and carvings left in the Middle East by civilisations of long ago.

You can read the whole thing here.

One of our directors, Sophie Masson was recently interviewed for the ‘Small Publisher Spotlight’ feature in Books+Publishing. Here’s a short extract:

What makes your small press unique?

All our imprints focus on very particular areas—we decided early on we did not want to do a general list, as we felt that otherwise our tiny press might get lost in the great ocean of children’s publishing. Because we’ve done that, we’ve been able to market our books in specific ways and give each imprint a flavour all of its own, which makes it easier to brand our books in the trade and to schools and libraries.

You can read the whole thing here.

And Two Tales of Brothers from Ancient Mesopotamia just keeps collecting those great reviews!

Here’s a short extract from the latest, on The Great Raven blog:

Here is yet another beautiful picture story book from the wonderful Christmas Press. Christmas Press is a fine example of Australian small press publishing, springing up to fill a niche that the large publishing houses have left open. It only does a few books a year, but all of them are carefully and exquisitely produced, retelling folk and fairytales from various countries. 

You can read the full review here. 

There’s an absolutely brilliant review of John Heffernan and Kate Durack’s Two Tales of Brothers from Ancient Mesopotamia in the latest edition of Reading Time, the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s online magazine, in which the book is Highly Recommended. Read it all here. 

There’s a fabulous review of John Heffernan and Kate Durack’s beautiful book, Two Tales of Brothers from Ancient Mesopotamia, in Buzz Words Magazine. Here’s a short extract:

Durack’s rich illustrations and Heffernan’s tight and descriptive text combine to produce what is a great introduction to the epic sagas of ancient times that also include lessons about good versus evil and the ties of family.

A great read, highly recommended.

You can read the whole review here.

Today is publication day for our launch title, Duncan Ball’s fantastic collection, This School is Driving Me Nuts and Other Funny Plays for Kids, illustrated by Craig Smith. We are thrilled t…

Source: Publication day for This School is Driving Me Nuts!

Since late 2014, my colleagues and I at Christmas Press have worked with a wonderful book production manager, Karen Small, whose fantastic business, Small but Mighty Productions, has enabled us as …

Source: Small but Mighty book productions: an interview with Karen Small

The wonderful writer Kate Forsyth(author of Two Selkie Stories from Scotland, amongst many other books!) has just written a lovely little review of Two Fearsome Fairy Tales from France(by Adele Geras and Fiona McDonald) in her summer reading round-up on the Booktopia blog–which has more than 100,000 readers!

Here’s a short extract:

Christmas Press has been quietly producing a range of exquisite fairy tale retellings with gorgeous illustrations for the last couple of years. This beautiful edition has the Jerusalem-born author Adele Geras retelling Beauty & the Beast andBluebeard with illustrations by Fiona McDonald (who also illustrated my own contribution to the series Two Selkie Tales from Scotland).

You can read the full thing here. (Scroll down)