ISBN: 0-9741607-0-9

The following review was contributed by:   Jennifer Brown : Click Here To View Jennifer Brown's Reviews

“When the road is bumpy and you’ve just had enough, look inside yourself and make yourself tough.”

If you’re looking for a new story of giving for the holiday season, look no further than David M. Stern’s book, THE TAILOR’S GIFT. A bedtime story within a bedtime story, THE TAILOR’S GIFT just happens to be the story a mother and father sheep tell their restless lambs. Can you guess the heroes of the story? Why, sheep, of course!

In this creative spin on the tale of how Santa Claus might have come to be, Stern creates Shimmel Cloth, an honest and generous tailor with a big heart and a flock of happy, dedicated sheep. When the town below is in need of real warmth, who is better suited than Shimmel and company to help them out?

Despite a treacherous and frigid journey, Shimmel and his sheep forge on in their mission of giving and bring the townspeople what they need most: warmth that comes from the inside. Shimmel and the sheep in turn learn about the good to be gained by gutting it out when odds seem stacked up against you – yet another lesson inside a lesson.

In fact, there are many “timeless” lessons to be had in THE TAILOR’S GIFT – not only the lesson of honesty and giving and the lesson of learning how to handle tough times, but also the lesson of community and sharing, and even of appreciating what you have. There is ample room here for family discussion and what better time than during the season of giving?

THE TAILOR’S GIFT is an attractive book with beautiful illustrations that make the story. Illustrator Dave Zaboski’s cute, fuzzy, happy-looking sheep give the story the warmth that it is trying to convey and his picture of a shadowy Shimmel and sheep driving through the sunset is a masterful way of making the Santa/Shimmel link without Stern having to blatantly point it out. No kid would pass that page and not discover a similarity between the two.

THE TAILOR’S GIFT by David M. Stern is touted as “A Holiday Tale for Everyone,” and rightfully so. Kids enjoy the story (I know because my three were glued) and grown-ups will delight in the multiple metaphors. With gorgeous pictures everyone will enjoy, THE TAILOR’S GIFT should make it on everyone’s must-read list for December and the rest of the year through.