Did your family, like ours, have a great little stash of holiday books? Books that emerged once a year and were as evocative of the season as any aroma of latkes frying or gingerbread baking? We’ve always loved the way holiday stories bring families together. They’re the moments when traditions get passed down, when the values at the heart of a community come alive. And for kids, a book about an unfamiliar holiday can open a door to a whole world of meaning. For children who celebrate that holiday, seeing their traditions reflected in a story is something really special.
We’ve gathered some of our favorite children’s books about holidays and celebrations from around the world. From the latke-frying chaos of Hanukkah in Chelm to the lantern-lit wonder of the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, there’s so much to explore. They make wonderful gifts for any season, but they’re especially meaningful when given in the weeks leading up to a celebration.
Hanukkah Books
We love that Hanukkah books for kids range from laugh-out-loud funny to quietly reverent. These three capture that wonderful breadth, and they’re some of our all-time favorites.
Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins is a modern classic that draws on Eastern European Jewish folklore to create a suspenseful, funny, and ultimately triumphant holiday story. It reads aloud brilliantly, one of those tales that feels genuinely rooted in tradition and only gets better with each telling. Way Too Many Latkes returns to the legendary town of Chelm (home of the well-meaning but hapless wise men of Jewish folklore) for a holiday comedy that gets funnier with every reading. Kids absolutely love this one. And Queen of the Hanukkah Dosas is a warm, vibrant story about a little girl determined to make her family’s dosas the centerpiece of the celebration. We love seeing South Asian Jewish families reflected here!
Christmas Books from Around the World
Christmas is celebrated differently in every corner of the world, and we love how these three books capture that wonderful variety. None of them tells the same story, and together they show just how much richness exists within a single holiday.
Babushka: A Christmas Tale
A World of Cookies for Santa: Follow Santa’s Tasty Trip Around the World
The Night Of Las Posadas Picture Puffin Books
Babushka, the Russian Christmas legend of the old woman who missed her chance to follow the Magi and has been searching for the Christ child ever since, is one of the great folk tales of the holiday season. The illustrations are gorgeous, and the melancholy, hopeful ending gets us every time. It’s one we come back to year after year. A World of Cookies for Santa is a joyful tour of Christmas cookie traditions from Sweden’s pepparkakor to Mexico’s polvorones. Perfect for families who like to bake their way through the holidays! The Night of Las Posadas by Tomie dePaola tells the story of the traditional Mexican re-enactment of Mary and Joseph’s search for shelter, with all the warmth and community feeling the celebration deserves.
Lunar New Year Books
Lunar New Year is celebrated by more than a billion people across East and Southeast Asia, and the traditions that come with it (the reunion dinner, the red envelopes, the lanterns, the firecrackers) make for terrific children’s storytelling.
A New Year’s Reunion is a tender, beautifully illustrated story about a father who works far from home and whose annual return for the Spring Festival is the most anticipated event of his daughter’s year. It captures the emotional core of the holiday, the reunion, better than just about any other children’s book we know. Thanking the Moon focuses on the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, a Lunar holiday centered on family, gratitude, and the luminous beauty of the full harvest moon. Grace Lin’s illustrations practically glow on every page. It’s a wonderful companion to any family’s lantern-lighting tradition.
Holi Books
The Hindu festival calendar includes some of the most visually spectacular celebrations in the world, and children’s books about Holi let every reader experience that beauty firsthand.
Festival of Colors captures the explosion of color and joy that defines Holi, the spring festival of colors, through the eyes of two young siblings in India. The illustrations are themselves a kind of Holi: saturated, celebratory, and impossible to look at without smiling. It’s a fantastic introduction for kids who’ve never seen Holi celebrated, and a beloved recognition for those who have.
Ramadan Books
Ramadan is observed by nearly two billion Muslims worldwide, and we’re so glad to see children’s books about the holy month getting better and more plentiful every year. These three are some of our favorites for young readers.
The White Nights Of Ramadan
Under The Ramadan Moon
Golden Domes And Silver Lanterns A Muslim Book Of Colors
The White Nights of Ramadan is set in Kuwait during the festival of Girgian, a Ramadan tradition specific to the Gulf region where children dress in traditional clothes and collect sweets from neighbors. We love discovering books like this that take you somewhere so specific. It’s the kind of detail kids remember. Under the Ramadan Moon takes a quieter, more universal approach, following a family through the nightly rhythms of the holy month in lyrical, meditative prose. And Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns, while not exclusively a Ramadan book, uses the structure of a color-concept book to introduce children to Islamic architecture, art, and daily life. It’s both educational and visually stunning.
Celebrate Every Season
The holidays in this guide are just a fraction of the world’s extraordinary calendar of celebrations. Each one is an invitation to learn, to share, and to find the common threads of joy that run through every tradition. We hope you’ll explore, and that some of these books become part of your family’s holiday traditions for years to come!
Browse more books about holidays and celebrations from around the world in our full collection.