A Cold Night: A Christmas Fable

Originally published in Italy, Bertossi’s solemn story offers a contemporary and somewhat abstract take on the Nativity story, following a group of animals that gathers in a stable on a snowy night. “I feel sorry for anyone who doesn’t have shelter tonight,” Donkey tells Cow, and the two eventually make room for Wren, Woodpecker, and Fox. Not long after the animals spot a human couple bundled up in hats, scarves, and patchwork clothes, they let them in, the woman gives birth to a child, and a star rises in the sky. Colored in drab browns, greens, and mustards, Bertossi’s images avoid any sense of cutesiness, instead emphasizing the blustery cold and connections between the characters and environment—at various points, Fox’s bushy red tail and the arm with which the man embraces his wife become part of the larger landscape. An unusual but memorable interpretation of the story of Jesus’s birth. Ages 3–5. (Oct.)