Book Review: The Littlest Solstice Tree

I shared some ideas about celebrating the winter solstice with kids, but I wanted to share a cute book on the subject as well. The Littlest Solstice Tree by Lisa Varchol Perron and illustrated by Ahya Kim talks about the tradition of going into the woods to decorate a tree on the solstice rather than bringing a tree home to decorate in your house.

Young Sapling hopes it will be the chosen tree to be decorated, though Ancient reminds it the tall and lush trees are usually the ones selected.

But the power of hope, friendship and the wisdom of children gives this solstice celebration a different ending.

It’s a short, sweet (not ashamed to admit it made me tear up a little) story with lovely illustrations that include people, trees and forest animals. It can serve as a gentle introduction to solstice traditions and a way to contrast solstice and Christmas celebrations.

The author’s note at the end of the book tells a little bit about the winter solstice, which happens in the northern hemisphere around Dec. 21 each year and in the south on or around June 21. It notes that people have celebrated to solstice for nearly 12,000 years and that traditionally greenery might be brought into the house but trees weren’t typically cut down and brought home for Christmas until the 1500s. (Still a long tradition!)

Winter solstice is a great time to bundle up and go for a walk in nature and think and talk about the returning of the light and hopes for the new year to come.

This would be a nice book to add to a classroom collection of winter holiday themed books or to read at home if you already celebrate solstice or want to incorporate a celebration into your family traditions.

About the book: 32 pages, hardcover, published 2025 by Beaming Books. Suggested retail price $18.99.

[Photo: Beaming Books]

Check out the kids craft section on Craftbits.com

When my daughter was younger I would spend a lot of time trying to come up with activities she could do in the car on long road trips and things to entertain her when we were waiting at restaurants and things that didn’t involve screens.

But it turns out there are a lot of great activities you can do with just a piece of paper and a pen.

What Do We Do All Day has a great collection of pen and paper games, including some that can be done with just one person, though they’re all more fun if you have at least two.

There are some classics on here like hangman and dots and boxes, but there are also quite a few I hadn’t heard of before.

I don’t want to spoil the whole list for you because you should definitely click over there and look around, but I will share about the one that you see pictured above.

This game is called Bridges, and you start by making the big random shape and the dividing it into a bunch of sections (the post says 30-50 sections is ideal but I think this one is smaller than that).

Each player gets their own color marker and you take turns drawing bridges from one space to another, crossing a third. Once there’s a bridge, no other bridges can start, end or cross in those spaces. Keep going until no more bridges can be built, and the person who makes the last bridge wins.

Check out the post over at What We Do All Day for more great ideas for no or almost-no prep games you can play with your kids or that kids can play together. I’d love to know if you have a favorite paper and pen game, whether it’s on this list or a different one.

[Photo: What We Do All Day]

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