Post-Holiday Letdown. It’s a Thing.

Extra Yarn
Written by Mac Barnett & Illustrated by Jon Klassen
Age Level: 2-7 Years
Published January 17, 2012
2013 Caldecott Honor Book

Knit one, purl one

As a child, I remember feeling incredibly sad when the holidays were over. I’d help my mother collect decorations from all over the house, then we’d wrap delicate ornaments and glittering angels in tissue paper before placing them in a storage box bound for the basement. Winters in Ohio were cold and grey, and they extended long into March. So I would reach for the best remedy for post-holiday doldrums that I knew, one that I still reach for now: a good book.

Extra Yarn takes place in the bleakness of winter, but the story brims with hope, color, and humor. But don’t let the bright yarn fool you, this book has a delicious dark side.

“On a cold afternoon, in a cold little town, where everywhere you looked was either the white of snow or the black of soot from chimneys, Annabelle found a box filled with yarn of every color.”

For Annabelle, the box of yarn is bottomless, producing an endless quantity of rainbow yarn that our guileless, purehearted heroine knits into sweaters, hats, and scarves for everyone and everything in her village. Her knitting brings warmth, love, and vitality to her community, utterly transforming it and giving it new life. Then one day, a greedy archduke arrives, and after failing to bribe Annabelle with enormous sums of money in exchange for her magic yarn, he hires a team of robbers to steal it from her instead. But when he receives his ill-gotten treasure, he opens the box to find that for him it is completely empty. The yarn proves to be destined only for Annabelle.

This book reads like a fairy tale. The delightful “sword in the stone” plot twist with the archduke creates a captivating moment of drama and suspense. It’s enchanting and fascinating, funny and smart, and it will have your little one on the edge of their seat, anxiously waiting to see how it ends. And like all good fairy tales, it’s one they will want to read over and over again.