About the Author

Patricia Toht once owned a children’s bookshop called Never Never Land before turning a love of books into a love of writing. Pick a Pine Tree is her debut picture book. Patricia Toht lives in Atascadero, CA.

Jarvis is an illustrator and animator who has worked as both a record jacket designer and an animation director. He is the author-illustrator of Alan’s Big, Scary Teeth. Jarvis lives in Manchester, England.

Reviews

The short, rhyming text has a bouncy, appealing tone...Delightful mixed-media illustrations use a flattened perspective, simple shapes, and glowing, light-filled backgrounds for a fresh take on the tree-decorating tradition. The illustrations are all in double-page-spread format with compositions that will work well for reading to a group or with just one child in a lap. Pick this delightful story for a Christmas storytime, for library collections, or for family reading around the Christmas tree.
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Holiday spirit crackles in Toht’s warm, step-by-step recounting of how humble stately pines transform into shimmering Christmas trees...Jarvis’s chalk and pencil texturing adds to the sense of a casual, homey holiday filled with traditions many families will recognize.
—Publishers Weekly

The pencil, chalk, paint, and digitally colored paintings are brimming with holiday cheer and warmth. Share with little ones prior to decorating a tree or as secular Christmas fare for holiday storytimes.
—School Library Journal

Toht’s rhyming text is greatly illuminated by Jarvis’s mixed-media illustrations, which imbue each step in the process with holiday warmth and capably capture that satisfying, twinkling glow of Christmas decorations.
—The Horn Book