December MOSS Kids Book Club
- Kara Cecchi
- 2 days ago
- 10 min read
And our December pick is...
December Pick -- The Old Sleigh
Caldecott Honorees Jarrett and Jerome Pumphrey deliver heart, hope, and holiday cheer in this magical companion to  The Old Truck and The Old Boat .
On winter nights, an old sleigh delivers firewood, bringing warmth and light to a small town. But small towns get bigger and families grow. When the old sleigh is overwhelmed, a new sled and a new generation carry on the custom and ensure the town is warm and bright.
This enchanting picture book celebrates tradition, community, and simple acts of giving.
Meet Our Creators:
Author/Illustrator: Jarrett Pumphrey
Jarrett is an award-winning author and illustrator. He makes books for kids with his brother, Jerome. Their books include the Caldecott Honor-winning There Was a Party for Langston written by Jason Reynolds; The Last Stand written by Antwan Eady; It’s a Sign!, an Elephant & Piggie Like Reading book; Somewhere in the Bayou, a Texas 2x2 List Selection; and their author-illustrator debut, The Old Truck, which received seven starred reviews, was named a Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly, and received the Ezra Jack Keats New Author Honor. Jarrett spends his time making books in his home near Austin, TX, where he lives with his wife, their two boys, a dog named Whiskey, and another dog named Ford. When he’s not making books, you might find him fishing on a river somewhere or tinkering under the hood of his new old F100 (this is The Old Truck IRL). You can learn more about Jarrett & his work with his brother by visiting their website, here.
Author/Illustrator: Jerome Pumphrey
Jerome is a designer, illustrator, and writer, originally from Houston, TX. He studied graphic design at the Art Institute of Austin and has worked as a technical writer, freelance graphic designer, and illustrator. Since 2016 he has been a graphic designer at The Walt Disney Company where he uses design and illustration to visually tell stories in print, digital, and immersive experiences for Disney global business development. He works primarily from his home office in Georgetown, TX, where he lives with his wife and their three kids. A few other Pumphrey brother favorites include: the middle grade series, Link + Hud: Heroes by a Hair and the newly released follow-up, Link + Hud: Sharks and Minnows; and Somewhere in the Bayou. Jerome has illustrated a few other picture books that live on our shelves including So Many Years: A Juneteenth Story by Anne Wynter & Elbert in the Air by Monica Wesolowska. Again please head to their website and see all the fun the Pumphrey brothers are having, here.
Below you will find our monthly craft; printable activity sheets; and our community outreach activity where we will come together to celebrate community and the simple act of giving with our stamped holiday cards. For more books to read this month, don't forget to check out our supplemental book lists -- Winter Reads & Cultivating Community.
We really hope you enjoy this month of book club as we continue to keep our nationwide book club free & accessible for all. Each book is intentionally handpicked with each activity and outreach curated to engage and enrich our youth's experiences. Through these diverse and inclusive reads, working and playing together, and giving back to their own community, we hope to instill empathy, understanding, & kindness in our kids.
Let's Craft: Stamped Sleighs
Throughout our story, you will notice the illustrations are, in fact, stamps! Jarrett and Jerome Pumphrey create the illustrations together. Their process starts with sketches. Then they turn those sketches into stamps that they make themselves. Next, they make prints with the stamps. They use black ink to maximize contrast. They scan the prints into the computer to composite the final images. And then they add final details and color. They say that they decided on stamps for a few reasons: 1) They just like the look they get. (So do we, right guys?) The rough edges, the texture–they love it all. 2) There’s a lot of visual repetition in their books. While they made a rule that they’d never use the same stamp on the same spread twice, they did allow themselves to use the same stamp on different spreads. So stamps made sense because they often made the same print of a thing over and over again. (3) Lastly, they both made the artwork in the book. And as collaborative processes go, they found stamps and printmaking to work the best for them. Jarrett could be cutting a stamp while Jerome draws another one. Or Jerome could be making prints while Jarrett scans them in. And vice versa all around. The process fit them and, in particular, their books perfectly. Here's a few videos of their process which is really cool & kids may enjoy watching, here. Â
This month, we wanted to demonstrate the beauty & spirit of giving. This is also the perfect opportunity for students to understand the long process of art and the beauty of making something to gift to someone else. To take pride in their work and then be able to gift that to someone else.
Materials:
Cardstock— white would be perfect as snow— we cut ours into quarters so we could hang smaller pictures, but if you want each kid to use their imagination to create a full scene, give them a full sheet of paper
Ink pad
Craft foam
Foam board
Stick glue
Scissors
Black marker/pen/crayon/colored pencil
Modifications:
Easy:Â Prep all materials. Child may need assistance gluing foam in the appropriate places. Draw lines for the sled's rope for child to trace.
Moderate:Â Allow child to create freely. May need verbal/visual cues to create sled in appropriate places. May need occasional assistance to cut foam.
Hard:Â Allow child to make without modifications. Encourage child to add more details to their stamped painting, using stamp design from the community outreach (tree or hollyberry) or their imagination to create their own stamping ideas.
Instructions:
1. Gather materials. We will be prepping the foam ahead of time for classrooms. You can have your older children complete this task.
2. You can complete this activity with any color craft foam. We chose red for the top of the sled and black for the bottom so it is easily recognizable as the sled from the story and easier on our local teachers/librarians doing this activity as we are pre-cutting the material for them. You will need two long rectangles and two shorter rectangles.
Note: With this activity, kids will be making their own craft foam stamps and their own stamped print. If kids want to take their stamps home with them, make sure they write their names on the back of their foam board. Have child write their name on the back of their paper prior to stamping. Or you can have them sign the front like the beautiful artwork it is, ready to hang up and display.
3. Let's make the stamp backing. Cut a 4in (length) by 2in (width) rectangle from the white foam board. You will be gluing your craft foam pieces to this board.
4. We'll start with the sled's top. Start by cutting a 3in (length) by 1/2in (width) rectangle from the craft foam.
5. Then, cut the sled's bottom 3 1/2in (length) by 1/2in (width) rectangle from the craft foam. Once you have the rectangle, cut diagonally down on one end to give the bottom a slight point. This will make the sled look more realistic.
6. Now you need two 1/4in (length) by 1/2in (width) pieces to create the sled's beams connecting the top and bottom of the sled together. This sounds confusing, but the pictures help, we promise.
7. Let's glue! Start by gluing the bottom piece first. Then add the two smallest pieces as beams, just above the bottom piece about 1/3 of the way in on both sides. Lastly, glue the top piece lining up the vertical edges of the top and bottom. Now, you have a stamp.
8. Press your stamp to the ink pad. Make sure the entire sled has ink on it. You may need to press fairly hard to coat the stamp in ink. Now gently press to paper and hold for a few seconds before lifting straight up.
9. To finish, all you need is the rope to pull your sled. Grab a black (if using colorful ink) marker, pen, crayon, or colored pencil to draw a line from the front of your sled, starting on the top and creating a loop to bring back to your starting point. Everyone did their own thing ignoring my instructions when creating and to be honest, I love them so much more.
10. Older children may wish to add a background using the stamps from the community outreach, a tree or a branch of holly berry. They may even wish to come up with their own stamping ideas. Note: Don't forget to have them sign their art!
*Additional activity: At Picture Books on Tap, our adult guests will be hand-carving their own stamps making their own linocut prints. Be sure to follow our socials to see their beautiful creations.
Remember: We encourage you to request your local library purchase the title for your community to share. It's easy to request. Head to your local library's website. On the site, there will be a "Suggest A Title" tab (see below). Just add the book The Old Sleigh by Jarrett Pumphrey & Jerome Pumphrey & submit. You can even share this blog with them. After reading or listening, we encourage you to please review the books on goodreads, on Amazon, & on your social media platforms. Reviews will help get the word out about these incredible books!
printable activity sheets:
We have created an activity kit for The Old Sleigh filled with worksheets designed to encourage pre-writing skills, fine motor skills, visual motor & visual perceptual skills.
Download the kit:
Community Outreach: Stamped holiday cards for the community
This holiday season we want to share in the spirit of giving to bring joy to those in our community. Have your kids create cards for someone who may need it in your area. Holidays and the winter season can be hard on so many. Especially this year. Maybe they are missing a loved one. Maybe they are separated from their family. Maybe they just lost their job. Maybe they're working multiple jobs to support their family. Or maybe, they are just tired and in need of a little supportive acknowledgement. These cards don't need to be holiday specific. We will be stamping a tree or winterberry on the front. using similar materials from our sleigh stamping activity; foam board, craft foam & a q-tip (will need red paint or ink). All images we created are inspired by the front cover. See below for examples. The message inside can be simple -- you are loved, you're doing a great job, we appreciate you, you are a light. Note: Have the kids write the inside message first and then stamp the front, that way you don't have to wait for it to dry to write inside and once dry it is ready to go out. Once completed, we encourage you to hang them throughout your community with a note to take what they need. We plan to hang a few in our local post offices, coffee shops, libraries, small shops, free libraries, senior centers/assisted living. Spaces where they can find their way to the people that need them most.
This activity doesn't need to be extravagant. This is a way for us to celebrate & educate with our kids -- creating for a stranger something beautiful to let them know someone is thinking of them this season while also learning about the the spirit of giving, is the perfect way to teach empathy, understanding, & acceptance. To raise kinder kids.
Please do not skip the community outreach activities. We truly believe this outreach activity is a vital part of childhood & an opportunity to raise kind kids. Teaching our youth the importance of celebrating & educating & appreciating creativity within ourselves & our community. To learn kindness, empathy, acceptance, & understanding of others & choose to celebrate those differences in their community.
supplemental books:
Picture books are for everyone, so while we believe you should read our MOSS Kids Book Club pick to everyone you know, here are a few supplemental books to get your kids, tweens, teens, & more to keep reading this December. These books make great additional reading to pair with our book of the month, The Old Sleigh, check them out: Everyone is Welcome, a celebration of community coming together against bigoted hate; The Great Banned-Books Bake Sale, cultivating community around literacy and the freedom to read; Saturday Morning at the Shop, a celebration of the spaces and places that bring communities together; Halal Hot Dogs, a family and community that takes joy and pride in their identity and traditions; The Ribbon Skirt, a two-spirit kid wants to create a ribbon skirt for the upcoming powwow & turns to their community for help; The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street, a family comes together to convince their neighboring landlord to let them stay where they find the true meaning of being in community; Truth Is, an empowering and defiant novel in verse in which a teen poet grapples with an unplanned pregnancy where she determines what happens to her body in a world that wants to take the choice away from her with the help of spoken word poetry and the community she builds for herself. There are a few great resources for our supplemental books, check them out below:
YAY! Another MOSS Kids Book Club pick, craft, printable sheets, and community outreach activity. We would love to see all the stamped sleighs & holiday cards your kids create. You do not need to share kid's faces. Please be sure to tag us on Instagram @mosskidsbooks & use #mosskidsbookclub. Sharing about MOSS Kids Book Club is a way for your community to learn more about what MOSS Kids has to offer & for them to know about brand new diverse & inclusive books. By doing so, we can reach & help more kids across the country. We'd also love to hear any feedback you may have, please email us at hello@mosskidsbooks.com. We appreciate you all so much for taking the initiative to bring kids together to read diverse books & hopefully learn vital life skills to help make our world a better place.
Don't Forget: We Have Local moss kids book club locations in eastern north Carolina!!
Wednesday, 12/10 at 6pm: Picture Books on Tap at Hopfly Brewing Co in Rocky Mount
Schools are back in session, as is our MOSS Kids Book Club visits & Lunch Bunch with third grade! Stay tuned for more coming in 2026!!