Maud Lewis has become one of Canada’s favourite folk artists, and her buoyant winter pictures of nature, pets, farm animals, and people at work and play are among her most charming. Her hands were twisted with arthritis, but Maud earned her living by painting Christmas cards and pictures and selling them from her tiny, gaily painted one-room house beside the highway near Digby, Nova Scotia.

Originally issued in 1997 and now available in this updated edition, Christmas with Maud Lewis paints a portrait of how this spirited woman celebrated the season in her life and art. Maud’s vision of Christmas embraces skaters sliding every which way, passengers leaning over the box of a horse-drawn sleigh, smiling oxen in their best harness, and bluebirds beside their snow-covered house. The paintings in Christmas with Maud Lewis are from the large collection of the Woolaver family.

Bob Brooks (1927-1999) was one of Canada’s finest photojournalists. His work appeared in Time Life, the Star Weekly, Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, McCall's, Harper's, Maclean's, Chatelaine, the London Times, Paris Match and National Geographic. His radiant photos of Maud, first published in the Star Weekly article that changed her life, reflect Maud’s joyous optimism.

Bob Brooks' profile page

In addition to his plays The Poor Farm and World Without Shadows, Lance Woolaver has published a number of fiction and non-fiction books for both adults and children, most notably The Illuminated Life Of Maud Lewis. He has won the Dartmouth Book Award, the Telefilm Canada Cross-over Award, and the Atlantic Bookseller's Award. Born in Digby, Nova Scotia, Woolaver now lives and writes in Halifax.

Lance Woolaver's profile page