Celebrate Easter: With Colored Eggs, Flowers, and Prayer

Holidays Around the World

by Deborah Heiligman

Celebrate the joyous feast of Easter in its global perspective with this National Geographic volume featuring over 25 vibrant photographs. Witness the holiest day on the Christian calendar as it is celebrated throughout the from the famous Easter Egg Roll at the White House to the traditional bonfires throughout Europe; with traditional Easter dances in Africa and Easter feasts in Australia; and the universally popular coloring of eggshells worldwide.

National Geographic supports K-12 educators with ELA Common Core Resources.
Visit www.natgeoed.org/commoncore for more information.

Genres: Picture Books, Holiday, Nonfiction, Childrens

32 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Deborah Heiligman has been writing for children since she worked at Scholastic News soon after college. Since then she has written more than thirty books for children and teens. Her books include picture books, both fiction and nonfiction, and young adult nonfiction and fiction. Some titles: Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith, a National Book Award finalist; The Boy Who Loved Math: The Improbable Life of Paul Erdos, a Cook Prize Winner and Orbis Pictus honor; Intentions, a Sydney Taylor Award winner, and a picture book series about Tinka the dog. Her latest book is Vincent and Theo: The van Gogh Brothers. For more information please visit www.DeborahHeiligman.com

Reviews

[Shamilah Gillani · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Holidays Around the World: Celebrate Easter: With Colored Eggs, Flowers, and Prayer” by Deborah Heiligman is a National Geographic nonfiction book that introduces children to a major Christian holiday, Easter. The book talks about the traditions and customs that all Christians follow on Easter. The book uses pictures from all over the world to show that different people celebrate Easter in their way, while still continuing the traditions. The book gives students a history of Easter and its significance in the Christian faith. As a teacher, I would introduce my students to this book in the month of March and relate it to the decorations that they see in their communities. Many students know of Easter, but not about Easter. I love the concept of global unity that is introduced; no matter where people are, they still come together and rejoice in their own special way. I could have my students make eggs, but in different ways for different cultures, as shown in the book. The author, Deborah Heiligman, celebrates Easter so the book comes from an authentic viewpoint and gives proper information. She has travelled around the world so she knows about the other cultures and can depict them properly in the text.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great nonfiction explanation of how Easter is celebrated in different places and by different people. Great photos as well as a nice list of books and websites to get more info. My only complaint is that it seemed a little odd to have every tradition explained as ..."we do this" rather than Christians do this, people in Sweden do this, etc. particularly as some of the customs may be very different from what the reader does. The author did tell what culture was being discussed but it still felt a little odd.

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Out of the three books I read in this series, this is definitely the holiday I'm most familiar with. Author did a good job talking about religion, but focused on the fun. Which is why we all enjoy Easter, anyway. :)

[Manybooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, perhaps rating Deborah Heiligman's Celebrate Easter: With Colored Eggs, Flowers, and Prayer with five stars is a bit overly inflated and enthusiastic. But since I do find that Celebrate Easter: With Colored Eggs, Flowers, and Prayer is in my opinion a pretty much perfect introduction to everything Easter related for children (from about the age of six onwards), I do indeed and firmly stand by my five stars. Because while Heiligman's presented text is of course pretty simply rendered, Celebrate Easter: With Colored Eggs, Flowers, and Prayer is also more than sufficiently informative theme and contents wise, with the author telling her young readers/listeners basically everything necessary to know in order to have a good general understanding concerning Easter in a clearly understood, engagingly related and detailed but without ever becoming textually overwhelming format (not only with regard to Christianity, with regard to Jesus Christ being crucified on Good Friday and then rising from the dead on Easter Sunday, or perhaps more to the point in the very early morning hours of Easter Sunday and which is why there are often Easter Vigils from late Saturday night to early Sunday morning, but also with regard to Easter being a celebration of springtime and general rebirth that is not just Christian but actually pagan in origin, and that many Easter traditions such as rabbits, coloured eggs, special flowers, bonfires and the like do not in fact appear in the Bible), and not to mention that Deborah Heiligman also points out in Celebrate Easter: With Colored Eggs, Flowers, and Prayer that Easter is indeed the most important holiday of the Christian year, that it definitely is considered holier and more significant than Christmas and that even many more secular Easter traditions do still seem to focus first and foremost on celebratory rebirth just like the Easter story of Jesus Christ's cruxifixction and resurrection equally does.

Educational, engaging and with Deborah Heiligman also providing a recipe for Italian Easter cookies, I have both appreciated and also enjoyed everything textually encountered in Celebrate Easter: With Colored Eggs, Flowers, and Prayer and with the accompanying photographs being nicely diverse as well (meaning from all over the world) and mirroring but thankfully not rising above Heiligman's words. But I guess that for me personally, what is the absolute icing on the cake so to speak regarding Celebrate Easter: With Colored Eggs, Flowers, and Prayer (and why my rating is five and not four stars) are the bibliographies (featuring both book titles and websites), a glossary, the map (showing where pictures were taken), and last but not least the Reverend George Handzo's short, nicely academic (and thus clearly meant more for adult readers, for caregivers, parents, teachers) afterword.

[Nathan Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book covers events that many Christian churches go through celebrating Easter.

Side note:The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, (incorrectly nicknamed Mormon,) is also a Christian faith.

[Rosemary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Colourful and informative children's book about Easter. Not recommended for the Southern Hemisphere, as there are frequent mentions that Easter happens in Spring.

[Kellee Moye · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full review and teaching tools at: http://www.unleashingreaders.com/?p=9432

This text is a wonderful informative introduction to Easter. It goes through not only the religious aspects of the holiday but also the traditions and secular parts. Although I think it could have gone into more detail about where the traditions came from (answered the WHY a bit more), it did a very good job of sharing all the different things that go along with Easter. I also loved the diversity within the book. The photos were from all over the world. And I am excited about the series Holidays Around the World because that means there are others within the series that will touch on holidays of other religions. This will help with understanding of holidays and religions that the reader may not be.

[K.L. Bernard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easter is a time for celebration. People all over the world celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, spring and family.

Young readers will enjoy this colorful history of the Easter holiday. Fantastic photography brings readers right into the limelight of celebrations from all around the globe. Readers will see cultures dance in Kona Hawaii, take on an Easter egg hunt at the White House and meet a rabbit in Natchez Mississippi and so much more.

The back of the book has hymns, a glossary, maps and even a recipe for Franny’s Tatales, an Italian Easter cookie.

[Karyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great pictures of other cultures and how they celebrate Easter. Not fully appropriate for a Christian preschool but could use pictures and talk about other cultural celebrations without actually reading all the text.

[Pam]

Great Easter read. How do people celebrate Easter in other countries?

[John]

The cover of our book has a little girl with a palm branch