The carpenter's gift A Christmas tale about the Rockefeller Center tree

David Rubel

Book - 2011

In Depression-era New York City, construction workers at the Rockefeller Center site help a family in need--a gift that is repaid years later in the donation of an enormous Christmas tree.

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Subjects
Genres
Picture books
Published
New York : Random House 2011.
Language
English
Main Author
David Rubel (-)
Edition
1st ed
Physical Description
1 v. (unpaged) : col. ill. ; 28 cm
ISBN
9780375869228
9780375969225
Contents unavailable.
Review by New York Times Review

EVERY children's book should be infused with emotion, starting with a sense of wonder. For me, the first great book of my childhood was "The Story of Babar," by Jean de Brunhoff, published in the United States in 1933. When I was 5, a year before Pearl Harbor, my mother showed me the book at the public library in my Brooklyn neighborhood. She told me decades later that when she saw the look on my face, she borrowed Babar and took us both home. We would borrow it, and its successors, many more times. The book has stayed with me all my life. Before I could decode the letters and words, I could follow the story through the drawings: the little elephant in the jungle, the killing of his mother by a gun-toting hunter, his wandering away from home with a broken heart and finding his way to a marvelous city. My mother called it Paris. Soon he met the Old Lady. He went to a tailor and chose a green suit, and soon he was learning to read. I read that first Babar book over and over again. The tale didn't make me into a colonialist (as later critics said it could). But ever since, I've hated guns and loved Paris. Reading these three excellent new picture books about New York City, "Balloons Over Broadway" "The Carpenter's Gift" and "Subway Story," I've tried to become a boy again, for just a little while; to read them with the innocent eyes of a child just learning to name the world. Impossible, of course. Among many reasons, I first read "Babar" in a world without television. No musical score told me what to feel. No laugh track urged me to giggle. When I opened "Babar," there were no spoken words at all, except those whispered by my mother, words from the pages of the book. Part of my growing sense of wonder surely rose from making those letters into spoken words. By myself. I do hope that many children open the pages of these books and feel something. I suspect that the emotions of New York children will not be the same as those who have never walked the streets of Manhattan. New Yorkers (and their parents) almost certainly will think: I didn't know that. But for those who live elsewhere, it might be: I wish I could go there. In "Balloons Over Broadway," Melissa Sweet tells the tale of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade through the life and career of a German immigrant named Tony Sarg, who moved to New York in 1915. Sarg was a gifted draftsman and a fine illustrator and cartoonist who was also passionate about toys and puppets. "He once said he became a marionette man when he was only 6 years old." His marionettes would eventually become essential to his American life and to the parade itself. Sweet's brilliant combination of collage, design, illustration and text gives "Balloons Over Broadway" an amazing richness. Children who can read will learn from written details, footnotes, instructions from Sarg himself. Younger children should be dazzled by the visual excitement of each spread. For parents and teachers, there is a bibliography and a note from the author that can help explain Sarg. None will ever see the parade in the same way. "The Carpenter's Gift" is more conventional in design and text, but it also tells a good story. The year is 1931, one of the worst of the Great Depression. A boy named Henry, who lives about an hour from New York City, joins his father in chopping some spruce trees and then taking them to sell in the big city. They travel in a borrowed truck, the boy filled with anticipation, since he has never before been in the city. They find their way to the site of the emerging Rockefeller Center. Some kind construction workers help them unload the trees. Father and son sell many trees, but not all, and decide to give them to the workers in gratitude for their help. The workers decorate the tallest tree, the first in Rockefeller Center, and when Henry goes home with his father, after making a wish for them to live in a warm house, he carries a pine cone with him. The following morning, he is awoken by car horns. The workers, touched by the father and son, have shown up, and then. ... Well, they return the kindness. Because this is a book about kindness, decency and memory, I'd rather not spoil the final movement. I LOVE the first sentence of "Subway Story" by Julia Sarcone-Roach, a Brooklyn-based author and illustrator: "When Jessie was born in St. Louis, Missouri, she weighed 75,122 pounds and was 51 and a half feet long." Obviously, the tale will be an exercise in the anthropomorphic. Ah, well: so, was "Babar." Jessie, the subway car, appears in the first spread, racing on elevated tracks from sunlight to deep blue night. We see her reacting to her passengers, to other trains, and crossing through tunnels under the East River. Time passes. Jessie is given new parts as old ones break down. Among other changes, she gets a paint job from the graffiti artists of the '60s and '70s. She works and she works and she works. But like most New Yorkers, she eventually starts running out of youthful energy. She is placed on furlough in the summertime, since she cannot supply enough air-conditioning, and the furlough becomes permanent. Sarcone-Roach guides us to Jessie's final destination with energy, style and charm. Only a subway rider (as the author most definitely is) could have imagined this book, and given us such a sustained sense of wonder. I hope many kids will spend some solitary time with each of these books. And maybe try "Babar" too. Pete Hamill, the author of more than 20 books, is a distinguished writer in residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 30, 2019]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Ever since construction workers building New York's Rockefeller Center put up a humble Christmas tree on site in 1931, the annual tradition has become a gift that keeps on giving. Author/historian Rubel's story of a Depression-era family's connection to that first tree-and the ripple effect of its bounties-puts the now magnificent symbol in perspective. LaMarche conveys emotional resonance with gauzy, soft-hued paintings of the inspirational proceedings. An afterword highlights Rockfeller Center owner Tishman Speyer's recent partnership with Habitat for Humanity, which earmarks the tree to be milled for lumber post-Christmas for a family in need. Ages 5-8. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review

Gr 1-4-During the Great Depression in New York City, young Henry lives with his out-of-work parents in a drafty shack and sells Christmas trees with his father. Giving a tall tree to some friendly construction workers results in the workers helping to build a house for his family; years later, a pinecone Henry plants becomes a Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, which is then milled for wood to build a home for another needy family. Detailed characterizations and a straightforward tone keep the tender tale from becoming saccharine. LaMarche's almost impressionistic colored-pencil illustrations put readers in the midst of the action. Appendixes tell the true story of the origin of the Rockefeller Center tree and describe the mission of Habitat for Humanity International.-Linda Israelson, Los Angeles Public Library (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review

During the Great Depression, down-on-their-luck Henry and his father bring spruces into Manhattan to sell as Christmas trees; through some good fortune and a little Christmas magic, kindly construction workers they meet there build the impoverished family a new house. Henry never forgets the wonder of that day or the kindness of those strangers. As an old man, he's given the opportunity to pay it forward: an enormous spruce tree that he planted all those decades before becomes the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center, and its lumber is later used to build a similarly needy family a new home. Rubel's story of compassion hits all the right holiday notes; LaMarche's lush, warm illustrations of glowing Christmas trees and smiling, caring characters drive home the central message of charity. katrina hedeen (c) Copyright 2011. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

An elderly man named Henry recalls the Christmas season of 1931 in this relatively long story that connects the Depression era to Habitat for Humanity via the enormous Christmas trees at Rockefeller Center in New York City.A boy of 9 or 10, Henry lives with his parents in a tiny, unheated shack in the country. Henry helps his father cut down evergreen trees to take to the city to sell, and there they befriend some men working on the construction of Rockefeller Center. Together they decorate a makeshift Christmas tree; Henry's father gives the last of the trees to the workers. On Christmas morning the workers respond by arriving at Henry's home with materials to build a new house. The boy receives a hammer from one of the men, and Henry grows up to be a skilled carpenter himself. In a Dickensian series of coincidences, a huge tree on Henry's land is chosen as a Christmas tree for Rockefeller Center, with wood milled from the tree to be given to a family for their new house. Henry meets the young girl whose family will receive the wood and passes his treasured hammer on to her. Luminous illustrations in a large format have a muted, shimmering quality, especially in the concluding view of the magical tree at Rockefeller Center.A sentimental but touching story with beautifully realized illustrations. (author's note)(Picture book. 5-9)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.