The Maine Christmas Song

Heartwarming lyrics from Con Fullam’s overwhelmingly popular The Maine Christmas Song present a timely message of hope, compassion, and peace on earth.

Learn about the old-fashioned spirit of Maine at Christmastime and discover the true essence of a time not so long ago.

Cynthia Baker’s charming illustrations enhance this enduring message and take readers through Maine’s wondrous landscape from the mountains to the great Atlantic shore.

Con Fullam is the composer and lyricist of The Maine Christmas Song, which has sold over 100,000 copies since its original release. He is a multi-award-winning and five-time Emmy-nominated television producer, performer, publisher, writer, and recording artist; the creator and showrunner for the PBS series Greenlight Maine; and the executive producer of the award-winning PBS children’s series, Ribert and Robert’s Wonderworld, for which he co-wrote and co-produced the music. His movies about the fantastical characters The Wompkees, which he co-created, have aired on PBS and many other networks and are now distributed in 40 countries. He is the founder and director of Pihcintu, a multi-national chorus of 34 refugee girls from 22 countries, which has been featured by The Today Show, Voice of America, National Public Radio, and Al Jazeera.

Cynthia Baker is a multimedia artist working in clay and paint who has traveled and lived all over the world, but spends her summers in Western Maine. Her formal art training began when she was six years old during the occupation and reconstruction of Japan, and continued in Germany, Paris, Chicago, Maine, and Florida. She taught elementary art in Bridgton, where she painted the mural for the Maine Lakes Environmental Association. She designed sets for Maine Public Broadcasting’s show Franklin the Good Food Friend, and painted panels for the original Magic Lantern Theater in Bridgton. She wrote and illustrated A Moose Family Christmas, Four Seasons in Maine, Why Can’t the Owl Sleep? and Cats and More.

A picture-book adaptation of Fullam’s popular song about the virtues of sharing and community togetherness.

An unnamed narrator says that long ago, when “roads were made of crushed rock and earth,” Christmas gifts were handmade and spiritually centered, and neighbors cared for one another. Although times have changed, there remains “a small corner of the earth where old values have not been lost,” the narrator explains—in Maine, where neighbors visit and bring gifts of food or offer to take kids for sleigh rides. Fullam shares traditions that focus on the power of giving in a picture book that’s half straightforward prose and half rhyming lyrics from the author’s song, included as sheet music at the end. Despite this shift from prose to poetry, the book flows well, and a feeling of Christmas spirit shines through in both formats. Baker’s painted illustrations showcase a diverse small-town community with residents of different ages, abilities, and skin tones. The realistic flora and fauna on many pages give the setting a tangible feel so that the warmth of a fireplace or cuddling cats seems to radiate from the pages. The idyllic nature of the images and poetry sheds a rosy glow on the holiday season, which many readers will appreciate.

A cozy, down-home tale of Christmas in New England.

                                                                                                             —Kirkus Review