In celebration of Mardi Gras, you may want to see if your local library carries Mardi Gras children’s books. One book you’d want to look for is King Cake for Cassius. It’s the story of Mardi Gras told by Cassius, a boxer (a dog – not a person):

The book begins with children discussing what they’re going to “be” for Mardi Gras. Cassius overhears that one of the children is unaware of the Mardi Gras tradition. She then explains that carnival season begins with the epiphany and ends with Mardi Gras. The dog also explains many of the traditions and terms associated with Mardi Gras including King Cake parties, parades, krewes and doubloons. She shares the name of her favorite parade which happens to be a dog parade named the Krewe of Barkus. The story concludes with Cassius stating that she’s going to be a wizard for Mardi Gras this year and asking “what are you going to be for Mardi Gras?”

The book contains a list of children’s Mardi Gras activities including a recipe for King Cake, instructions on how to make a shoe box float, and how to have a mini-parade.

If you can’t find it, no worry, because I have a recipe for King Cake from the National Honey Board for you.

The King Cake, a simple sweet bread, was brought to New Orleans by the Spanish and French colonists. The treat has been a Mardi Gras focal point since the eighteenth century.

Traditionally, a trinket such as a bean or “baby” is baked inside the cake.* When sliced, privileges or obligations are bestowed upon the lucky recipient of the trinket – from being crowned King or Queen of the Day to bringing a King Cake to the next celebration.

Mardi Gras Quick Honey King Cake

Ingredients:

1. 1/2 cup water
2. 1 cup milk
3. 2 pkgs. rapid-rise active dry yeast
4. 1/4 cup butter, melted
5. 1/2 cup pure honey
6. 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
7. 2 teaspoons lemon zest
8. 2 teaspoons salt
9. 3 egg yolks, beaten
10. 4 cups flour
11. Dried bean or porcelain baby, optional*

Directions:

1. Heat water and milk in a saucepan over medium heat to 110°F. Pour mixture into a large bowl.
2. Sprinkle yeast over milk mixture to dissolve. Let stand until softened, about 5 minutes.
3. Add butter, honey, cinnamon, zest, salt, egg yolks and 2 cups flour.
4. Beat for 2 minutes at medium speed with an electric mixer, scraping down bowl as necessary.
5. Blend in remaining flour until smooth.
6. Cover with a clean cloth towel and let rise in a warm place for 30 minutes or until doubled in size.
7. Preheat oven to 350°F. Stir batter with a wooden spoon for about 25 strokes.
8. If desired, add a dried bean or porcelain baby to the batter (dried bean or baby can be omitted from the batter and served separately).
9. Spread batter evenly into a greased bundt pan.
10. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until golden brown. Cool in the pan on a rack 5 minutes.
11. Remove from pan, invert, and cool completely. Decorate as desired with honey icing (recipe below). 

Honey Icing

Ingredients:

1. 1 tablespoon pure honey
2. 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3. 1 tablespoon milk
4. Purple, gold, and green sugar sprinkles

Directions:

1. Combine honey, powdered sugar, and milk in a medium bowl; mix well. Add additional milk, if needed to reach a smooth, spreadable consistency.
2. Spread icing over the top of cake.
3. Sprinkle one third of icing with purple sugar, one third with gold, and one third with green.

*When slicing, please instruct guests to watch their bites for the trinket baked inside.  Please keep in mind that small objects may present a choking hazard.

Cole Family Christmas

Jennifer Liu Bryan, who co-authored Cole Family Christmas with her grandmother-in-law, based the book on a cherished story passed down through generations of the Cole family. Originally intended as a brief work to be distributed at the family reunion, the project evolved into a nationally praised children’s book, and involved more than 20 family members.

For more information on the book, check out the Cole Family Christmas website.

Reading helps bring the family together

A survey commissioned by the book’s publisher Next Chapter Press found that a traditional Christmas experience for 52 percent of Americans is reading aloud together as a family. Since Cole Family Christmas is a longer and harder books (for ages nine to 12), get together as a family to read it. Parents can turns reading it to younger children with help of the older kids in the family. The 74-page book should take you a few nights to read, so this would be a wonderful family activity to do in the nights leading up to Christmas.

Giving the gift of reading aloud as a family will not only deepen the bond during the holidays, but studies show it will also improve your child’s reading ability, said Bryan, who is also a  contributor to the advocacy website ReadAloud.org.  This is a great year to start reading together as a new family tradition.

I love her idea! Will you make reading together one of your New Year’s resolutions?

More fun from Toot & Puddle

Toot & Puddle: I’ll Be Home for Christmas – We already have Toot & Puddle: Let It Snow and Home for Christmas is a terrific holiday companion to it. For ages four to eight, Toot promises to be home for Christmas after visiting his aunt in Scotland. But ice storms and delayed flights threaten to spoil the holiday plans, until an unexpected fellow traveler with a handy sleigh (hint, hint) saves the day.

My daughter, Lucie thought that the pigs’ names were beyond hilarious since “toot” is a popular word for flatulence among the kindergarten set. I loved the illustrations and the sweet relationship between friends.

There is also a Toot & Puddle: I’ll Be Home for Christmas DVD and a Toot & Puddle: I’ll Be Home for Christmas Gift Set featuring a 7×7 hardcover edition of the book along with two plush pigs all in a red and green gift box.

Just ask Mrs. Claus

We have a few oddball Christmas traditions in our family. We tell the kids that Nana has Santa Claus’ phone number and all teachers and parents have his email address. We also tell our kids that any man who looks like Santa (white beard) is a spy for the real Santa, including Joel our postmaster, who recently grew his mostly white and grey beard out just before Christmas. (Coincidence? I think not!)

Well, if you want to get the real scoop on Santa and what’s going on up there at the North Pole, check out Mrs. Claus Explains It All: (At Last) Answers to the Questions Real Kids Ask! by Elsbeth Claus. (Oh, you didn’t know Mrs. Claus’ first name was Elsbeth? Neither did I.)

This book is marvelous! It explains everything from what Santa likes to eat (cookies and mac-n-cheese!) to if she’s worried that Santa’s too fat. (He works out one hour a day in his state-of-the-art underground gymnasium.) Mrs. Claus also answers questions about the elves and how does Santa deliver all those presents in one night.

Mrs. Claus Explains It All: (At Last) Answers to the Questions Real Kids Ask! is a hoot and will come in handy when your little elves ask all those questions about the fat man in the red suit. For all ages, even the kids who are too old to believe in Santa.

The Gift of the Christmas Cookie: Sharing the True Meaning of Jesus’ Birth by Daley Mackall takes kids back to the origins of another Christmas tradition – the baking of Christmas cookies to share with friends, neighbors, and the less fortunate.

The Gift of the Christmas Cookie: Sharing the True Meaning of Jesus’ Birth shows kids that Christmas is about helping others and sharing the spirit of Christmas giving. The story is about a child named Jack, follows young Jack during a Christmas season during the Great Depression. Jack’s father has hopped a freight train West, hoping to find work, and wont’ be home for Christmas.

Jack is surprised to find his mom baking cookies to give away to needy people a church. Treats are a luxury his family has done without for  long time. While he helps his mother make cookies, she tells him the story of the Christmas cookie. He learns that the real gift of the Christmas cookie isn’t just sharing with a homeless man, but sharing the love of Jesus with him as well.

I liked this simple story because it explains to children the joy in giving during Christmas and how God gave us his only Son. It also shows that Christmas isn’t all about getting presents and stuffing your face, but helping others, too.

The Christmas Cookie Recipe

The Christmas cookie tradition originally sprung from Southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland where craftsmen carved special molds into shapes symbolic of Bible stories.

Simple Christmas Cookies

Ingredients:

1. 4 cups sifted flour
2. 3 cups powdered sugar
3. 4 eggs
4. 1 teaspoon baking powder
5. 1 teaspoon vanilla
6. 1 teaspoon anise extract

Directions:

1. Stir all the ingredients.
2. Let the dough stand for two hours.
3. Then roll out the dough. Imprint with cookie cutters or use a designed rolling pin, or press into molds.
4. Let them sit while the oven preheats to 325 degrees.
5. Bake on greased baking sheets for about 15 minutes.
6. Place on a rack to cool.

More books from Zonderkidz

Another Zoderkidz Christmas book is We Believe in Christmas . What is Christmas really about? Find out why we place the star on the Christmas tree, and let the song “Silent Night” help you imagine the night Jesus was born. 

The book shows how the secular side of Christmas like shopping, Salvation Army kettles, and Santa are a reflection of the true Christmas sprit of giving and Jesus’ birth. Written by Karen Kingsbury, this book is for children ages four through eight.

Sammy Spider’s First Hanukkah – For ages four to eight, Sammy watches longingly as Josh Shapiro lights another candle and receives a brightly-colored dreidel each night of Hanukkah. “Spiders don’t spin dreidels, spiders spin webs!” Sammy’s mother reminds him. Then on the last night, Sammy gets his own spinning surprise.

Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins – For ages four to eight, every year the Hanukkah goblins snuff out the menorah candles, destroy the dreidels, and pitch the potato latkes on the floor. Hershel of Ostropol outwits the nasty beasties and saves the holiday!

Hanukkah! – For ages four to eight, this book by Roni Schotter won the

National Jewish Book Award. It follows one family’s celebration of the holiday, from eating latkes and spinning the dreidel, to singing prayers and lighting the menorah. With sweet rhyming text and warm illustrations, this is the perfect way to celebrate the festival of lights. 

The Golden Dreydl- For ages nine to 12, Sara finds Chanukah celebrations boring. When her Tante Miriam arrives and gives her a Golden Dreydl, everything changes. The dreydl, an enchanted princess in disguise, takes Sara on a journey to a magical world. This book by Ellen Kushner is a delightful holiday tale that weaves together threads of Jewish folklore and tradition with fantasy and humor.

Latke stories

The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming: A Christmas Story – For irreverent Lemony Snicket fans of all ages. A particularly irate latke is the star of this book, but many other holiday icons appear and even speak: flashing colored lights, cane-shaped candy, a pine tree, even Santa Claus. People who are interested in any or all of these things will find this book so enjoyable it will feel as though Hanukkah were being celebrated for several years, rather than eight nights.

Latkes, Latkes, Good to Eat: A Chanukah Story For children four to eight, Sadie and her four little brothers are very poor and always hungry. On the first night of Chanukah, Sadie performs a generous act, and in turn receives a frying pan that cooks up sizzling hot, golden latkes on command. Sadie tells her brothers never to use the magic pan, but when she goes out one afternoon, the mischievous boys can’t resist. They remember the words to start the pan cooking . . . but what were the words to make it stop? This humorous tale of generosity and greed is accompanied by bright, cheerful illustrations depicting a traditional Russian village. An author’s note and a recipe for Sadie’s latkes are included.

The Borrowed Hanukkah Latkes For ages four to eight, it’s the last night of Hanukkah and there are only three little potatoes left, and not enough to make latkes for the relatives. Rachel has the solution, she will borrow some potatoes from Mrs. Greenberg. And then she will invite Mrs. Greenberg, who is all alone, to share Hanukkah with them. But though Mrs. Greenberg has a heart of gold, she is a stubborn as an ox, she doesn’t want to be a bother. Luckily, Rachel is one smart and equally stubborn little girl.