Christmas in Austria

Part of a series developed by World Book Inc. several decades ago for young people, these books have evolved into a rich storehouse of information for anyone of any age who enjoys learning the Christmas history, stories, native Christmas songs, Christmas crafts, and holiday recipes of many nations. One of the highlights of "Christmas in Austria" is the way they cover Austria's heritage of Christmas music. Unfortunately for the reader, there have been new discoveries regarding the history of "Silent Night." These came to light in the 90s but the book was published in 1982. Since World Book updates the books in this series every few years, hopefully this misinformation will be corrected in a new printing of "Christmas in Austria." The book is richly illustrated with full-color photos and illustrations. Three Austrian carols have the original language, English translation, and piano arrangement -- "Silent Night," "The Twilight Is Falling," and "Still, Still, Still." There is also a section of Austrian Christmas crafts. Recipes in the book include rasberry tartlets, cheese dumplings and apricot cookies. Collect the whole series for your home library, re-read them every December, and share them with friends and family. The title gets less than five stars while it still has the misinformation about "Silent Night."

This is a brief, but engaging book about Christmas traditions in Austria from the World Book Encyclopedia. With many beautiful color photographs, the book covers the following subjects: 1. Awaiting Christkindl (The Christ Child) 2. An Austrian Family Christmas 3. The Twelve Nights and Sylvester 4. Alpine Holidays 5. "Silent Night" and Strauss 6. Visions of Vienna 7. Christmas Expressions 8. Austrian Treats 9. Austrian Accents 10. Austrian Melodies The book is charming and pleasant to read as it chronicles the Advent season in Austria. Each page is loaded with pictures, and there are many folk poems, songs, instructions for Christmas ornaments that you can make yourself, and even recipes for making authentic Austrian Christmas treats. Without being dull or academic, the book conveys a good amount of detail about Austrian culture, the history and meaning of the holiday, and the various celebrations that go on at that time of year. I lived in Austria for nearly two years and can say that the book is very informative and accurate. About the only downside is that there could have been more recipes, songs, et cetera, but I suppose they wanted to give a random sampling and not a comprehensive survey of Austrian cookery/music and so on. An impressive amount of information is contained in this slim volume. Well worth a look for anyone interested in Austria.