'Twas the Night Before Christmas: Storytime with Matt Tavares

Sunday, November 20, 2022 - 11:00am
Event address: 
2 Carmichael St
Essex, VT 05452

Join us a Phoenix Books in Essex for a very special holiday storytime event featuring author-illustrator Matt Tavares and his beautifully illustrated version of Twas the Night Before Christmas!


The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.

Once upon a time, children imagined St. Nicholas as a stern, skinny bishop who was as likely to dole out discipline as Christmas presents. But thanks to the poem “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas”—written by Clement C. Moore in 1822 and published the next year in the Troy Sentinel—a plumper, merrier St. Nick was born, transformed into the sleigh-riding, chimney-diving jolly old elf we now call Santa Claus. With gorgeous monochrome illustrations by Matt Tavares that are meticulously true to pre-Victorian times, this reissue of the holiday favorite ’Twas the Night Before Christmas Or Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas honors the poem’s original language in a definitive keepsake volume.

Matt Tavares is the author-illustrator of numerous acclaimed picture books, including Red and Lulu and Dasher: How a Brave Little Doe Changed Christmas Forever, as well as Becoming Babe Ruth, Growing Up Pedro, and other sports biographies. He is the illustrator of Twenty-One Steps: Guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by Jeff Gottesfeld and The Gingerbread Pirates by Kristin Kladstrup, among many other picture books. Matt Tavares lives in Maine.

DATE:  Sunday, November 20th, 11:00 AM

LOCATION:  Phoenix Books Essex, 2 Carmichael St, Essex, VT

ADMISSION: This event is free and open to all ages, but advance registration is requested.  Please register below. 

BOOKS:  Copies of Twas the Night Before Christmas and Dasher  will be available for sale at the event.  Can't make it to the event but still want to purchase a signed, personalized copy of Twas the Night Before Christmas  or DasherClick HERE  Signed copies will be available after the event on November 20th.  If you ordered a book for store pick up, we will contact you as soon as it's ready.  If you ordered a book with shipping, please allow an additional 7-10 days for delivery.