I wrote Catherine’s Pascha because I couldn’t find enough Easter books that I loved when my children were small. But there are lots of wonderful books about St. Nicholas. Why write another one?

Mostly because I wanted to get to know Elizabeth better.

Elizabeth is especially important to me. Children with disabilities rarely show up in children’s books, especially when the disability is not the focus of the story. Because I’m a mom of kids with special needs, when I wrote Catherine’s Pascha, I wanted to include a disabled character.

In Catherine’s Pascha, Elizabeth is a secondary character. By the time the book came out, I knew that her favorite color was purple and her patron saint was Elizabeth the Dragon Slayer. I knew that she could mostly get around with crutches, but sometimes needed a wheelchair. I knew that she preferred fried chicken to hot dogs. But there was so much more to know about her.

And so I wrote The Saint Nicholas Day Snow was to get to know Elizabeth better, and to give her a larger role in a story. By the time we were done with the book, I felt like I knew her as well as I know Catherine.

I hope you love her as much as I do.

Who loves Nicholas the Saintly?

I also wanted to write the book because I love St. Nicholas. As I worked on the book, I often found myself humming traditional songs to St. Nicholas. But I didn’t exactly want to write about the saint himself (although part of his story works its way into the book). I wanted to write a story about how Orthodox children experience St. Nicholas.

It’s rather like what I did with Catherine’s Pascha. That’s not a story of Pascha, exactly. Rather, it’s the story of a child’s experience of Pascha. And The Saint Nicholas Day Snow is the story of two children’s experience of St. Nicholas Eve and St. Nicholas Day.

St. Nicholas in the illustrations

St. Nicholas has always been known for his goodness and his mercy and his practical acts of love and kindness. Because of this, he is loved and has been loved by people throughout many cultures and places and traditions and times. This universal outpouring of affection for one of my favorite saints shows up in the pages of The Saint Nicholas Day Snow.

Becky decorated the pages with images of St. Nicholas from mosaics and manuscripts, icons and statues. You’ll see St. Nicholas in a ship in Italy, and on an elephant in India. These images are ancient, modern, and everything in between. Along with these are images of churches dedicated to St. Nicholas from all over the world.

St. Nicholas in the story

Of course, over the centuries, stories about St. Nicholas, and traditions honoring him, have come to have differences. And those differences are part of the story. Catherine’s little brother, Peter, argues with Elizabeth about the traditions regarding St. Nicholas in their homes. Does he come in a sleigh, with reindeer? Or riding on horseback? Does he come on St. Nicholas Eve, or Christmas Eve? Does he put treats in stockings hung by the fireplace, or in shoes set out by the back door?

Peter’s godfather, Andrew, tells the story of St. Nicholas and the widower’s daughters. That’s the very ancient story on which all of the gift-giving traditions related to St. Nicholas are based. And Peter’s godfather tells the story in a way that embraces all the children and their traditions.

It’s that universal embrace of love that characterizes St. Nicholas, and the The Saint Nicholas Day Snow.

Books as joy

To be completely honest, I also wrote it because I discovered that writing picture books is fun! Especially because I got to collaborate with R.J. Hughes (aka Becky), who is the most wonderful illustrator any writer could have wished for. Her illustrations add layer upon layer of richness and depth to the book.

In her talented hands, a couple of brief references to Elizabeth’s grandmother become a fully realized wordless story-within-a-story. The events in the main illustrations are echoed in the illustrations of the events surrounding Elizabeth’s grandmother.

Both stories are filled with kindness, prayer, faith, and love. The girls set out their shoes (with carrots and apples for St. Nicholas’s horse, or his reindeer), and Catherine’s parents pray and keep vigil for Elizabeth’s grandmother. And all of them, in the end, receive joy.

Read More

The creation of Catherine’s family: Illustrator R.J. Hughes explains how she created Catherine’s family.

Book activities with The Saint Nicholas Day Snow: From cooking and crafts to academics and Advent devotions, you’ll find activities here to extend the book and support your celebration of St. Nicholas Day.

17 essential picture books for Orthodox Christian kids: If you’re looking for picture books that include stories about Orthodox Christian people and traditions, you’ll find them on this list.

Buy the Book: The Saint Nicholas Day Snow

Shoes or stockings? Horse or sleigh? Does St. Nicholas visit on December 6 or on Christmas Eve? Will a little girl’s prayer be answered? When Elizabeth has to stay at Catherine’s house, she’s worried about her grandmother, and worried that St. Nicholas won’t find her. The grownups, though, are worried about snow.

Celebrate the wonder of St. Nicholas Day through the magic of a book: The Saint Nicholas Day Snow. Available on Amazon, Bookshop.org, or my webstore.