Louisville, Kentucky—Katherine Paterson, the award-winning author of Bridge to Terabithia, The Great Gilly Hopkins, and Jacob Have I Loved, is back with a new collection of Christmas stories. Beloved by children and adults for decades, Paterson has twice won the National Book Award and the Newbury Medal and is the recipient of the 2013 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award. In this new collection of short stories, A Stubborn Sweetness and Other Stories for the Christmas Season (Westminster John Knox Press), Paterson explores the dark side of Christmas in order to find a true message of hope. Each story features a conflicted central character that is struggling to find the meaning of Christmas, which appears lost in a world of greed, pain, and loss.

This collection includes the stories of real-life people such as a lonely widower, a pregnant teenage runaway, and a political prisoner in China who have lost sight of the true meaning of Christmas due to overwhelming pain and circumstances. Katherine Paterson uses each story to remind the reader of the first Christmas story and the hope and peace that it offers to the world.

Katherine Paterson is the author of more than 30 books including 16 novels for children and young adults. In addition to Bridge to Terabithia and Jacob Have I Loved, her most popular books also include The Master Puppeteer and The Great Gilly Hopkins. In 2000, she was named a Living Legend by the Library of Congress. She is currently a vice-president of the National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance.

Media interested in a review copy or additional author information should contact Stacie Kizer, [email protected].