Jane Ray playfully captures the romance and impossibility of the well-known holiday song in a volume that opens with an inviting streetscape of artful row houses along a canal. Snow gently falls and a delivery is being made to the red-haired woman living at number 4: a partridge in a pair tree. Each item from the song is showcased in turn in a variety of imaginative scenarios featuring a multicultural cast. The children on the street play with the five gold rings (hoops) as the woman watches from her door, surrounded by the bevy of birds she’s already received. The nine ladies dancing sail by in a boat along the canal in flapper-inspired garments. The eleven pipers piping represent a variety of cultural traditions as they surround the woman on her staircase. Through it all the woman’s expressions (surprise, delight, dismay) are a treat. There is much to notice on every page of Ray’s mixed-media illustrations, not the least of which is the young man who lives next door: the woman’s true love. Ray’s images balance rich colors and details with a wonderful sense of warmth and whimsy. (Ages 4–9)

With luminous artwork full of elaborate detail, the acclaimed Jane Ray brings new life to a classic holiday song.

In this lushly illustrated interpretation of the familiar Christmas carol, each spread offers surprises for the eye as nostalgic city scenes depict a multiethnic cast of characters bustling with packages and sprucing up their homes for the holidays. But at one home in particular, an endless succession of gifts keeps arriving: birds of all stripes, ladies dancing aboard a brightly bedecked boat, lords leaping on rooftops, and pipers piping up and down stairs. Filled with intricate patterns and whimsical flourishes, Jane Ray's gorgeous artwork is the perfect match for this wonderfully cumulative tale.