Uncle Vova's Tree

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown Kids Holidays 4-week checkout	Kids Book / Holidays / Christmas / Polacco, Patricia	4-week checkout	Due 05-18-2024

Youth level.
Grandparents, aunts and uncles, and children gather at a farm house to celebrate Christmas in the Russian tradition.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Booklist Review
Publishers Weekly Review
Summary / Annotation
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

sweet story submitted by camelsamba on August 3, 2011, 11:28am A peek into a Russian Orthodox Christmas celebration.

Patricia Polocco submitted by derin on August 17, 2011, 5:06pm awesome author

Christmas submitted by tshish on August 9, 2015, 12:27am Great story and like the pictures

A Holiday Story with Depth submitted by Meginator on August 27, 2022, 9:20pm This picture book is more of a memoir than anything else, as Patricia Polacco reminisces about her childhood visits to her uncle’s home at Epiphany. Her Uncle Vova hails from Russia and the family maintains many Russian traditions, giving the book a gentle educational component as Polacco walks readers through a typical Epiphany gathering. The bittersweet ending comes more or less out of nowhere, packing quite an emotional wallop but all the same paying tribute to the power of memory and the ways in which we hold on to those we love even after they pass. Polacco’s illustration style is quite unusual for picture books, with characters who are not immediately endearing (in contrast, the outdoor scenes are quite nice), although her use of vibrant colors provides a sense of warmth that the characters themselves do not have. This book may not have a wide appeal, but it does have its charms.