| Title | : | Who's That Knocking on Christmas Eve? |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0399238735 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780399238734 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 32 |
| Publication | : | First published September 23, 2002 |
Once again, Jan Brett creates an original Christmas story full of warmth and magic. Featuring beautiful borders, intricate illustrations, and a stunning display of the Northern Lights, Who's That Knocking on Christmas Eve? will rightfully take its place among Jan's Christmas favorites with the whole family.
Who's That Knocking on Christmas Eve? Reviews
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Alright! Lately, I have been taking a break from reading folktales from around the world, but now I am trying to get back into reading more folktales from around the world! I just stumbled upon this little gem of a book called “Who’s That Knocking on Christmas Eve?” which is a children’s book by Jan Brett that takes place in Norway and it is about how a boy from Finnmark and a young girl named Kyri tried to ward off a pack of trolls from spoiling their Christmas dinner. “Who’s That Knocking on Christmas Eve?” is a truly brilliant book for children who love Norwegian folktales and lovable bears!
On Christmas Eve, a boy from Finn mark was trekking on a northern place on his way to Oslo to show off his ice bear to the townsfolk, when he spots a cozy hut that was occupied by a little girl named Kyri, whose father had gone out to stop a group of mischievous trolls from eating their Christmas dinner. The boy from Finn mark then arrives at the hut and asks Kyri to let him inside the house and they also let the ice bear sleep under the warm stove. Suddenly, the two kids hear a loud knocking at the door and they knew immediately that the trolls were trying to get inside the house to eat the delicious Christmas dinner.
Oh my goodness! I just really adored this book and not only because it has gorgeous illustrations and an exciting story, but it is also a folktale and I love folktales! Jan Brett has certainly done a wonderful job with both the writing and the illustrations of this book as they are beautiful and inventive in every way and they are much more gorgeous in this book than in her other books! I loved the way that she illustrates the boy from Finn mark with blonde hair and wears a stylish Norwegian outfit that has a blunt grey and gold tint color with red and blue lacings over it. I also loved the images of the trolls themselves as they have spiky blond hair, long noses and big lips which truly make them look extremely mischievous and I also loved the illustrations of the northern lights detailed at the top of the main illustrations as they have images of various characters from the book in blue and white colors and are shown as northern light looking characters overlooking the situation in the main illustrations. Jan Brett has also done an excellent job at writing this story as the characters are truly inventive to read about, even though I personally wished that the boy had an actual name like the girl instead of just being called “the boy from Finn mark.” I loved the fact that both boy from Finn mark and Kyri were both resourceful in trying to outsmart the trolls as the trolls were trying to steal their food, but the kids would out think them at every turn. The trolls were truly shown as raucous characters, just as the book said and you will easily find yourself sympathizing with Kyri’s predicament as the trolls were barging into Kyri’s home without her permission and that is enough to make anyone angry!
Overall, “Who’s That Knocking on Christmas Eve?” is a fantastic book for fans of Jan Brett’s work and who love reading Norwegian folktales. I would recommend this book to children ages four and up since there is nothing inappropriate in this book.
Review is also on:
Rabbit Ears Book Blog
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Another fantastic Jan Brett book. One of my favorite things in this book is she uses the hair of the trolls to look like the aurora borealis. The art is fantastic with the side windows showing more of what's going on as usual. It's lovely and invites you into her world. I simple want to visit all her story books.
There is a house that smells good attracting all sorts of visitors. There is a bear and a boy in upper Finland who spot it on Christmas Eve. The Polar Bear and Boy are invited in. They are attacked by Trolls and the bear protects them.
A magical story and the telling of it is well done. I'm loving Jan. I think 2018 will be the year of Jan Brett along with my other ideas. -
Who's that knocking at the door? Could it be friend or foe? A stranger looking to get warm, or some mischievous trolls hoping to ruin the Christmas Eve feast? Trolls, Jan Brett's gorgeous artwork, and a beautiful white bear . . . what's not to love?
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A Norwegian folktale about a boy from Finnmark traveling with his ice bear to Oslo. They come upon a hut with smoke curling up out of the chimney. The boy from Finnmark is hungry and tired. He and his ice bear decide to knock on the hut's door. Kyri is inside feeding logs into the fire when she hears the knock. The knockety knock sounded too polite to be the trolls that come every Christmas Eve to bust down the door and eat up all the Christmas meal. When she peeks out the door she sees the boy from Finnmark and his ice bear. She invites them in but warns them about the trolls that come every Christmas Eve to eat the Christmas dinner. The boy said, "Trolls would be a welcome adventure."
So begins this gorgeously illustrated Norwegian folktale with its captivating story. The illustrations are vivid and imaginative. There is so much on the pages to grasp one could spend a couple of minutes looking at them. I wish the boy for Finnmark had a name like Kyri did, but that is possibly part of the myth of the folktale. With my library book came a compact disc with and without page prompts. -
Loving Jan Brett. Her stories are fantastically unique and the illustrations are so detailed. Beautiful snow filled pictures with lots of great characters, all my children love her books.
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Fun little fairytale-like story with great art, creepy trolls, and a polar bear. My boys were a little afraid as they went to sleep. Bwahaha!
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Gramby's story time for Elinor
Jan Brett has beautifully illustrated this book . My granddaughter and I love to find the trolls and other creatures hidden in the illustrations. We enjoyed the story, but it's not as well developed as some of her other books. -
I think this is one of my favorite Jan Brett stories!
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When a Finnmark boy and his ice bear, enroute to Oslo, stop off at a small mountainside hut for shelter in this traditional Norwegian folktale, they find themselves unintentionally performing a much-needed service for the people who live there. Kyri and her father, long plagued by trolls on Christmas Eve, keep watch to no avail, and lose their holiday feast every year. With the advent of the boy and the bear however, all that changes, as a series of events - the children flee when the trolls arrive, one of the trolls mistakes the bear for a cat and pokes him in the nose with a hot sausage, and the enraged bear chases the trolls out of the hut and onto the mountain - ensures that the problem will never recur...
First collected by Asbjørnsen and Moe, in their
Norske Folkeeventyr, this tale - Kjetta på Dovre ("The Cat on the Dovrefell") in the original - can also be found in some other picture-books, from Tomie dePaolo's fairly traditional
The Cat on the Dovrefell: A Christmas Tale, to Jane Yolen's more recent revisionist interpretation,
Sister Bear: A Norse Tale. This retelling by Jan Brett is engaging, and the artwork is truly gorgeous! Lovely decorative endpapers, full two-page illustrations, with smaller sidebar illustrations inset on the edges - one of the hallmarks of Brett's work - and copious use of Scandinavian motifs, make this a true visual treat. I probably would have awarded four stars, if I weren't irritated at the absence of any note about source material, which is always a pet peeve of mine, when it comes to folkloric retellings. Leaving that aside, this is a book I would recommend to young folklore enthusiasts, particularly those looking for Christmas stories, as well as to fans of Jan Brett. -
I just read
The Christmas Visitors: a Norwegian folktale by
Jeanette Winter, which is available to borrow free on OpenLibrary.
Almost exactly what Brett told here. The illustrations are much more subdued, and the text slightly longer, in Winter's version. But Winter has a (brief) author's note giving credit to the origin of the story, so point for her! -
Hit me right in the childhood.
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It was cool how a polar bear was wearing a harness and the boy was on skis, had his own ice bear. I liked the frame around the pages, with different images in an oval frame and a polar bear statue on top. I liked the northern lights across the sky.
The troll people were really ugly, with those long noses and tails with a clump of hair on the end and hair sticking up.
I liked learning about the diet in Finnmark, of sausage, fish, buns and cakes, sweet porridge and apple cider.
It took a turn when Kyri, the girl in the home, jumped at every creak in the roof and ran to the window every time an icicle fell. She was afraid of trolls that always came and pounded on the door until it burst open and they ate all of the Christmas food. Her dad went into the mountains to chase them off before they came.
I didn't know how she knew he was the boy from Finnmark. How did she know him? And how in the world did that polar bear curl up under the stove? There's no way he would fit.
I'm not why only Kyri had a name and no one else did. It was just Kyri's dad and the boy from Finnmark. Didn't they deserve names? It was so stupid how her dad was shown on the side of the page, standing there and looking with binoculars and obviously being useless bcuz he missed a stranger coming to his house with his daughter alone, and missed it when the trolls knocked.
It was so stupid how Kyri wondered if the porridge was creamy enough. There comes another knock and the boy yells out no one home. I thought he said trolls would be a welcome adventure. Now he's barring the door and locking the windows.
Kyri then wondered if the sausage was salty enough. Come the freak on. There are bigger fish to fry than wondering if the food is good enough. How annoying.
And get real, who uses the word raucous in a kid's book? Hello! You're writing to young kids, not adults! So stupid.
And so incredibly stupid how they pinched each other, stamped around on each other's toes and tweaked their snouts, because that's how trolls have fun...
One of the trolls found the bear, poked sausage in his face and called him Kitty. Why would he call a bear kitty?
The bear got mad and chased them out of the house. And what was even dumber was that the boy yelled out "Scratch them, Kitty!" Why the heck would he call his BEAR a kitty?
And her stupid dad, who's been in the mountains for absolutely no reason, just clued in to the fact something was wrong when he heard the screams. Yeah, good idea going into the mountains...
And stupidly, he ran into the trolls, noticed they didn't want to be at his hut, and told them good-bye. Why would he say anything to them after what they've always done to his house? Then when he gets home he's complimenting the ice bear and inviting him over next Christmas. So, you have to wait a whole year to see each other again? Okayy...
And wtf is up with the freaking stupid crap with calling a polar bear a cat? A whole year passed and while she's out getting wood a troll asked if she still had the kitty, and she said yeah, but she's grown into a big cat now and has 7 kittens. Wtf is wrong with these ppl that they don't know what an animal in their own land is called? How would a cat be scarier than a bear anyway?
This could have been a good book had the story been different. I liked the sky with all the images of the animals. That was really cool, but the writing was as lame as I've ever read. So stupid it was painful to read. It was idiotic and the writing and inane story killed this. -
I loved the fairy tale look of this book, and the Norwegian feel to it.
However, when I read the description that the polar bear was coming, it sounded a tad...stupid.
The trolls in the inside cover. And the decorations look very Norwegian.
I love the polar bears on the sides of the page, with the aurora borealis behind it.
I love how they're called ice bears.
'It was because in years past on chrsitmas Eve, trolls came when they smelled the delicious aromas coming from the hut. They would pound on the door until it burst open, and they wouldn't leave until they had eaten up every bit of the Christmas Eve meal.'
This doesn't sound very threatening. They beat down the door just to eat food.
Her dad says "I'm going up the mountain to watch and chase them away." It seems wrong for her dad to go out alone and stop them.
It annoys me when words don't capture the right sound: 'knockety knock, knockety knock.'
I was surprised he was traveling to show his ice bear off in Oslo.
It's funny when the boy said "trolls would be a welcome adventure."
I thought it was just for decoration, but the pics on the side were actually acting out scenes in the book. Which is odd to have there.
They hear knocking on the door, and they think it's trolls, so the boy calls out "there's no one home" which is weird. They put the chest in front of the door.
The lil scene shows the dad looking through his binoculars, which made me laugh. Because apparently the trolls are at their house. There was a little hand on the side of the house.
They then lock the windows.
-after the trolls come up through the cellar. You think if you knew trolls would be attacking, you'd shut the door, lock the windows, and block the cellar beforehand.
'Then, when they were through stuffing themselves, they tumbled about, pinching each other, stamping on one another's toes, and tweaking their long snouts, which is how trolls have a good time.' I found this weird.
'But trough the ruckus and din.' What is din?
I was waiting on the bear to wake up and scare the trolls away, and was surprised when it took a troll to put a sausage on the 'kitty's nose' to wake him up.
Somebody yells "scratch them, Kitty!"
Shouldn't you call the bear a dog if anything?
"You must come back next year for a real Christmas Eve feast on your way home from Oslo." A whole year?!?
Then it just skips to a year later, and the girl is gathering firewood for their chrsitmas Eve dinner.
"Do you still have that kitty that sleeps under the stove?"
"Oh, yes," Kyri said, "only she has grown up into a big cat now,& she has seven kittens, all larger and fiercer than herself."
"Awk," he screeched, "then we won't be visiting your hut on Christmas Eve." And he disappeared into a huge snowdrift.'
Why are we calling it a kitty? You think she'd say she didn't have the bear anymore?! & he actually thinks she's telling the truth.
I love he bears constellations in the sky!! How pretty!!
I can't believe it ended like that. This book didn't go anything like I thought it would. The fairy tale started and then ended short after. -
The story is good ... but it could have been better. For one, it's too short. Several more pages would have helped young (and older) readers get a better feeling for the place and times. One more page of illustrations with the young Finn traveling across the snowy landscape (perhaps with a troll watching) and another couple of images inside the house would help readers 'own' the story. I was also bothered by the polar bear's behavior. Okay, I can accept that it's a trained bear, but it's totally bizarre to have a polar bear crawl under the stove where it is warm.
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The illustrations are gorgeous, I particularly love the deep colors accenting the winter setting. However, the story itself is just mediocre. Granted, I've never been a fan of trolls so their appearance held no real interest for me. Additionally, this wasn't terribly Christmasy, it's really more of a Scandinavian winter story. Fans of Jan Brett will want this for the pictures alone but I thought the text was neither memorable nor engaging.
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I have a special place in my heart for this book, as the main character is modeled on one of the polar bears at Brookfield Zoo where I used to work. But I think even without that, I would enjoy this fun holiday story.
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This is a wonderful tale, a fairy tale from Norway about Christmas, winter, and mischievous trolls. The illustrations are classic Jan Brett - beautiful scenes and pictures within pictures. Our girls really enjoyed the story - especially how Kyri and the boy were able to trick the trolls.
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I thought this story was pretty bland. Not much happens. There is also the trope that appears in a lot of kids books, the romanticizing of having a wild animal as a pet. Not okay. I thought this would be a fun holiday read; not so much.
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The pictures were beautiful and the ice bear was adorable (and YES I did read this just to complete my yearly goal, take THAT Good Reads!)
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I always love Jan Brett's artwork and stories! So much fun!
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I never tire of Jan Brett's artistry. What a tremendous gift she possesses. One again, using a Norwegian folktale for the springboard of the story, the illustrations are filled with attention to detail. Each page contains images galore, and while one might think it difficult to focus, Brett always has the two page spreads with a focal point and then smaller images on the periphery.
Cold and weary, Olso travels with his very special ice bear. Spotting chimney smoke and smelling delightful food, Olso is inspired to continue to move along to the source of his needs.
Finding a delightful cottage, he knocks on the door asking for rest and respite. Hesitant to open the door, Kyri is surprised to find that it is not troublesome trolls, but rather a person who might help her.
Each Christmas Eve the sneaky, nasty trolls invade and steal Kyri's well planned, delicious meal. This year, when the trolls invade, Olso's ice bear comes to the rescue. Mistaking the bear for a kitty cat, the ugly troll sticks his nose with a hot ember. When the bear roars, the trolls flee.
This is creative, beautiful and, once again, the art work is stunning. -
Jan Brett's books are inspired by her and her husband's travels. Her books are filled full page illustrations representing the region's culture. Who's That Knocking on Christmas Eve was based on her visit to Norway and Finland. The illustrations are colorful and full of motion. Much time can be spent studying the pictures. In this book, you see a pet polar bear, northern lights, structures, and a boy and girl representing the Norwegian culture. Her style incorporates folkstyle with troll and mischief behavior and humor. I enjoy the flow of events and her use of descriptive, sensory words. The story moves forward with a "knockety, knock, knockety knock" as the trolls try to invade the house to eat the Christmas Eve dinner. I can see similarities from The Three Pigs and Goldilocks and Three Bears. It is a fluid read with suspense to see what happens next and one of friendships being made.
This would be a good book to use at Christmas time and to study settings, plot, characters, and theme. It could be an introduction to a writing lesson on individual traditions experienced during the holidays. -
This book was written by Jan Brett. She shares a wonderful story about a little girl who lives with her father in the snowy mountains. Every year on Christmas, their home is broken into by trolls who steal their Christmas meal. This year, while the little girl's father is outside looking for the trolls, she is visited by a boy who is traveling with his ice bear to Oslo. He asks to rest there because he has been traveling a long time. That evening, when the trolls break into the house, they are terrified of the ice bear and run away. The following year, the a troll visits the home to ask if the ice bear still lived there. When she replied that the bear had gotten bigger and had babies, the troll said that they would not be back that year for Christmas dinner. This book, as with all Jan Brett books, has wonderful illustrations that capture reader's interests.
Interest Level: K-2
Lexile: 750L
DRA: Not Available
Guided Reading: L -
From the author and illustrator of
The Mitten comes a delightful Nordic story about a girl and her father who have their Christmas dinner cruelly devoured by impish trolls every year. This year, though, a boy with a polar bear comes, and tries to help them with their troll problem.
I like how this book truly reminds me of when I lived in Finland and visited Sweden--the geographic and story elements ring true to me. The illustrations are beautiful, and like in The Mitten, by glancing at the side panels you can get a sense for what is happening elsewhere in the story world and what is soon to be featured. I liked the hint for older readers of a potential romantic interest between the boy and the girl.
Her books are currently a little old for my children, but regardless, I need to read more from Jan Brett. -
Oh, how I love Jan Brett's books! This is a wonderful retelling of a book I remember fondly from childhood. My kids loved it just as much and we read it nearly every day in December. It became a teaching tool as we talked about geography, foreshadowing, legends and the importance of repeated storytelling, trolls, Christmas traditions and Nordic animals and handicrafts. And oh, those illustrations! She's so fantastic--each troll has its own personality and the patterns in clothing and furnishings are marvelously familiar (to me) and memorable.
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I can't believe that I haven't reviewed this one before! This is a Christmas themed retelling of 'Kjetta på Dovre', a Norwegian folktale collected by Asbjørnsen og Moe.
I have just finished another version of this folktale entitled, 'Sister Bear', and came in to goodreads to record that version of the story when I realized that this one hadn't been noted by yours truly.
If you are interested in adding a bit of Norwegian culture or trolls to your holiday book collection, I recommend that you check out both titles. -
The story is reminiscent of any of the fables we grew up with where trolls were involved: mischief and happy endings. The illustrations are exquisite and make the reading all the more enchanting. There is plenty of mischief for the "toddler troll" to imitate, and the story has a happy ending.
Read our full review at the
Reading Tub.
