"The Friendly Beasts" is a lovely old English Christmas carol (the words and music are included in their entirety on the last page). Tomie de Paola has drawn beautiful pictures, in his signature style, to accompany the words to this song. (We didn't know the song before we came across the book. Now we tend to sing it, rather than read it, to the children.) It has been a favorite in our family partly because of its beautiful simplicity and is frequently requested (even when it's nowhere near Christmastime) by our younger children.