From REtoday - Autumn 2010This book offers 18 'five minute stories and assembly outlines'. The material is organised in six sections: 'Preparing for Christmas', 'Light coming into the world', 'Love for the world', The gifts of Christmas', 'Food at Christmas' and 'Celebrating Christmas'. All the sections, each of which contains three stories, come with an introduction to the theme, supporting Bible links, recommended songs and suggested prayers. Each story is followed by questions designed to help children 'get to grips with the story' and activity suggestions to encourage them to express the story own it and live it out.The central character, as the title suggests, is Timothy Bear, and the setting is his school and the Nativity play his class is preparing. The stories are sequential in that they progress through the rehearsal stages to the performance, with a diversion into Oliver!, the KS2 production which prompts the bear to give up chocolate and honey until Christmas.The characterisation of children of this age is delightfully accurate (the author is a former teacher) but there was some confusion as to whether Timothy was a bear in a school for bears, making all the other characters in the stories bears underneath, or whether the other pupils were children. It took until page 50 for the situation to be clarified as Timothy and Claude performed a 'high five', with 'hand against paw in the air, calling out "Friends!".

'The author writes in a down-to-earth style; he knows his classroom and he knows the KS1 context. He gives teachers good advice in the telling of stories, encouraging a variety of voices, though he admits he is not especially gifted in that respect. He suggests using objects to focus children's attention, not least Timothy Bear himself. He encourages the involvement of children and the ongoing discussion of the stories after assembly, although he does give the class teacher permission not to have been in the assembly! The material is very accessible, easy to navigate and would require minimum preparation by the teacher leading the collective worship.Reviewed by Julie Grove.