A Book

I really love those old Christmas songs, especially from the 1940's.  These were indeed trying times, but I imagine that these were also the days of strong hearts and unspoiled innocence.  Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Andy Williams, Nat 'King' Cole and of course the redoubtable Bing Crosby.  When it comes to Christmas songs of the past, Bing tops the list for me. 

1965 in Niles, Illinois

With his songs in the background, he brings back warm memories from when I was a little guy, mouth agape, sitting on Santa's knee at my Grandpa and Grandma's house (that was really my Dad dressed up as Santa).  It all never gets old.

Well, 15 years ago I happened to listen a particular old Bing Crosby song for the first time that really touched my heart. It is called "The Littlest Angel".  It is a special song with a compelling story about an angel who is only 4 years old.

Bing Crosby, c. 1940's

When our son was born almost 11 years ago, I decided that I would buy him a book about the Littlest Angel.  I looked and looked. Google to Amazon.  I found a few books with the title, but none told the story from the song. And the images in all of the books were not inspiring.  They certainly were not as I had pictured in my imagination or mind's eye of this magical and heavenly world where this tale had unfolded.

It was then off to Barnes & Noble at the neighborhood mall. Nothing. Then other bookstores searching. Nothing. 

It seemed that no books existed of this story.

I am a painter, cartoonist and illustrator. I thought I would try to create what was in my mind's eye for my son. I wanted to complete a set of drawings before he turned 4 years old.  So I set up my drawing table and would listen to the song.  It inspired my first drawing, which is of the child sitting on a cloud with his little treasure box in his lap.

Over the next 3 years I had successfully completed most of the drawings.  And just before our son's 4th birthday, I completed the final 2.  All of the drawings together seemed to capture the key parts of the story. My goal was for the images to be traditional, clean and simple, in keeping with those times of yesteryear.

A couple of years later, we decided it might be a great idea to incorporate the images, coupled with a variation of the words in the song, into the story for a new children's book.  I wanted the book to be in a form that would allow for an adult to show and tell the story, but also where a small child could pick up the book on their own and thumb through the pages spontaneously.  We decided to call our book "The Tiniest Angel".

Here below is a link to listen to the song. 

So the Littlest Tiniest Angel Story unfolded into this published book called The Tiniest Angel.  The book is now available for purchase. If you are interesting in purchasing the book, the price is $14.99 plus shipping. To place an order, please email Ruth Cofre-Carlson at rcofre@arkpcb.com (we are setting up an automatic payment system now).

Below are some of the images in the book. 

We hope you like them.