This beloved Christmas Classic captures the warmth and wonder of the season, inviting the readers to respond with the imagination and with the heart. In *Once in the Year,* Elizabeth Yates retells two of the oldest of the Christmas legends. She has woven both of them—the story of the flowering forest and the legend of the animals talking at midnight—into a single, compelling story. The characters, Peter, his mother and father, Old Benj, and the animals, come to life through the warmly nostalgic text and the delicately detailed illustrations of Nora Unwin. All the charm of a New England countryside emerge in these lovely drawings. Discover for yourself the truth in what Peter's mother tells him: "When something wonderful happens to people on Christmas Eve, it is to be cherished in the heart and in the mind. We must not be afraid of the wonderful things, nor must we let others laugh them away from us. Only thus do we learn to hold our dreams."