One Wintry Night: Picture Book
An Unforgettable Telling of the Greatest Story Ever Told
Ruth Bell Graham and Richard Jesse Watson combine their talents to present a remarkable rendition of the Christmas Story.
The Story
One Wintry Night by Ruth Bell Graham is really two stories intertwined. It is the story of a young mountain boy named Zeb Morris who gets lost during a snowstorm. He stumbles up to a house that his grandfather helped to build and knocks hoping they will let him spend the night. He wakes to find the blizzard still raging. He jumps out of bed and discovers that sometime during his wanderings, he had sprained his ankle. The lady of the house gives him breakfast and bandages his foot.
They agree that he must stay until the blizzard is over and he must stay long enough to allow his ankle to begin healing. That night, the woman tells the Christmas story from the very beginning. Beginning with Creation.
For two days, Zeb finds himself immersed in a sad yet beautiful story. When the storm passes and the story is over, Zeb finds that he dreams about the story. When he wakes he finds that “It was dawn.”
The Writing
Ruth Bell Graham’s writing is smooth and flows easily from the tongue. The book is long and almost stretches the definition of a picture book to the limit. It is seventy pages and is divided into eleven short chapters.
Illustrations
Richard Jesse Watson’s illustrations are stunning. They are full of rich detail and color and invite you to absorb them at your leisure. The flyleaf says that he spent four years preparing the illustrations for the book. His work was worth the time. Even if a reader had no interest in the story they would find the book worthwhile for the illustrations alone.
The illustration for the first day of creation is full of comets and blasts of light and planets and stars. It would delight anyone who loves the heavens with its striking interpretation of the beginning.
The story of Noah’s ark is illustrated with a sweet elderly couple surrounded by animals. The two-page spread showing the flood is rich in underwater detail with the small margin on the top showing the ark lost in the vastness of water. But the most delightful image from the story is the understated image showing what happened after the flood.
Watson shows a patch of muddy earth with new plants springing up among the litter of branches. Footprints of all kinds wander through the mud leaving little puddles in the deeper impressions In a large pool of water, we see a reflection of Mount Ararat with the ark perched on top and a rainbow arcing over it.
Every illustration deserves recognition. The last Christmas image has special merit. It is an image of Resurrection. It shows the door of a tomb with doves flying around and an abundance of flowers – the promise of peace and hope.
Conclusion
The story One Wintry Night does what children’s books seldom do, it gives a panoramic view of life and gives children (and adults) a place in it. Through the richness of detail found in the illustrations the reader finds that they are hungry for the joyous abundance found in the story. The result is a hunger for the promises found in the greatest story known to man.
One Wintry Night, by Ruth Bell Graham, illustrated by Richard Jesse Watson. (Baker Books).
