LOUISVLLE — The Rev. Kathleen Bostrom is always looking for fresh ways to tell an old story.

     Which is how she came up with Josie, a character in a story she penned five years ago as her Christmas Eve sermon at the Wildwood Presbyterian Church in Wildwood, IL.

     Bostrom co-pastors the congregation with her husband, Greg.

     With a few adaptations, that sermon is now a beautifully illustrated children’s book, Josie’s Gift. It was featured recently on the cover of Publisher’s Weekly.

     The story is about how a poor Depression-era girl comes to understand the meaning of Christmas, a piece of her legacy from her dad who has died suddenly and who she deeply misses. “Christmas is not about what we want. It’s about what we have,” he told her year after year.

     Bostrom says that she’s always looking for a way for people to connect emotionally with biblical texts in worship, including children who are often left out of more heady adult sermons. Hence Josie.

     “Christmas is not what we get. It is what we have. It is not material things. It is what we have in Christ coming into the world,” said Bostrom, during a telephone interview with the Presbyterian News Service. “A lot of times we wish that life were different. We wish things were different.

     “We all have this gift in Christ. But I didn’t want to sound preachy.”

     So the story revolves around Josie’s longing for a blue sweater that her mother has to stretch to afford. The sweater, Josie thinks, will quell the emptiness she feels since her dad’s death. But when she encounters a homeless man, woman and baby using the family’s barn for shelter on Christmas Eve, Josie gives up her much-coveted sweater to warm the baby.

     “I was trying to tell the story in a new way,” she said.

     Bostrom said the story “wrote itself” the Christmas after her own mother died. She kept remembering her mother’s stories of growing up poor in Depression-era West Virginia – of homeless people begging food at the door, of wanting Christmas gifts that were unattainable.

     Bostrom is a longtime writer of children’s stories. Who is Jesus? was a finalist for the 2000 Gold Medallion Award, given for outstanding books in Christian publishing. What About Heaven? was nominated for a People’s Choice Award.

     Writing is an extension of her ministry.

     “Our church is full of children. Parents are coming to me all the time with questions. Kids are asking questions. And I try to answer their questions in a way that makes sense,” she said.

     When Pete’s Dad Got Sick is a story to help kids understand chronic illness in a parent. Papa’s Gift takes a look at grief.

     But she is also keen to re-tell Bible stories so that they’re heard fresh. In that vein, Bostrom has published three little books with the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation’s Geneva Press that relate biblical narratives in Dr. Seuss-style-rhymes. For the story of Moses and Pharoah in Exodus, she penned, Green Plagues and Lamb? From the New Testament, there is How Paul Became Christian, a slight take-off on the Grinch.

     Snake in the Grass whimsically captures the Adam and Eve story.

     It goes like this: “I said to my Adam, ‘Just look at us two! Already, we’ve run out of fun things to do. We’ve eaten our fill and we’ve climbed all the trees; For didn’t God tell us to do as we please?’ But, oh, we got bored. We got bored. Bored! BORED! BORED! Our lives were too calm, which could not be ignored.

     “And then something went HISS! You could not miss that hiss.”

     Published by Broadman & Holman Publishers in Nashville, TN, Josie’s Gift, a hardcover book, has full-color illustrations done by Frank Ordaz of Auburn, CA, an award-winning artist of children’s books.

     Bostrom couldn’t be more pleased with the look.

     “It makes me think of my Mom,” she said. “And I love what the story has become through the visual artist and the publisher. Seeing my story come to life through other people has been great …

     “I’m glad to see it shared with a larger context (beyond) our congregation.”

     She intends to keep writing. A mother of three, Bostrom said she loved holding her kids and reading to them. “Those are wonderful memories,” she said. “I thought it would be a cool thing to write and give parents a story (to enjoy reading to their children) …

     “That’s what motivated me to have it published.”

     Bostrom has a Master of Arts in Christian education and a Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary. She has a Doctor of Ministry degree in preaching from McCormick Theological Seminary.

     Her newest venture, Finding Calm in the Chaos, is a devotional book for grown-ups. It will be released by the Westminster/John Knox Press in October.