On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me a partridge in a pear tree. The carol, the parlor game, and the counting song that families have sung for centuries becomes a Jan Brett picture book, and that means every page rewards a second, third, and tenth look.

Brett's sumptuous illustrations, rich in traditional folk motifs and framed in her signature snow laden borders, carry far more than the suitor's extravagant gifts: look closely and you will find a love story, a family's busy Christmas preparations, Merry Christmas written in eleven languages, and a veritable menagerie of charming creatures from that famous partridge to the twelve drummers drumming.

This is the Puffin paperback edition, a full sized 8 x 10 picture book for ages 4 to 8. Read it once through as a song, then spend the rest of December finding everything hiding in the margins.