Illustration by Veronica Grech, Special to the Star Tribune

Holiday books

In his story “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” Dylan Thomas remembered getting lousy books for Christmas. “Pictureless books in which small boys, though warned with quotations not to, would skate on Farmer Giles’ pond, and did, and drowned,” he wrote. “And books that told me everything about the wasp, except why.” Our holiday books section features nearly 60 titles — picture books for kids, novels for teens, and biographies, histories, novels and story collections for all. The picture books have pictures. The wasp books — well, we don’t recommend any wasp books. But if we did, they’d tell you why. Because a bad book can be just as disappointing as no gift at all. – LAURIE HERTZEL