All I Want for Christmas is Rain

All I Want for Christmas is Rain by Cori Brooke, illustrated by Megan Forward.  (New Frontier Publishing) PB RRP: $24.99 ISBN 9781925059717

Reviewed by Rebecca Newman

In this picture book for young readers, drought threatens a family’s outback farm and Jane decides to travel by train to town to ask Santa to bring rain for Christmas.

The story is told through rhyming text and the rhythm has occasional hiccups, but the story itself is simple and enjoyable.

Megan Forward’s illustrations are the highlight of the book — starting with the endpapers at the opening of the book where we have a hint of the drought with swirling brown. The artwork greatly assists in the storytelling, echoing the heat of an outback summer and drawing the reader through to the end of the book with the arrival of Christmas rain (thank you, Santa!). The  endpapers at the end of the book have a greenish tinge as a hint to what will come.

All I want for Christmas is rain would be a great book as a starting point when discussing children’s experiences of Christmas in urban and outback Australia, and in the Northern Hemisphere.