RUMFORD – Burt deFrees has released a new book aimed at children of all ages, including adults, titled “Gift of the Animals.”

This is his second book in as many years, and like the first, “The Big Brass Bed,” grew from the experiences of he and his wife, Jane, with their three children as the children were growing up on a farm in Rumford.

DeFrees wrote the story when his first child, Evelyn, was born in 1959.

“I had been losing sleep over a class and a stage production. Writing the story helped me get to sleep,” he said.

At that time, the story was read by Jane and Burt and other relatives as an oral play. Over the years, the couple read it to all three children, and now, it is read each Christmas by their children to their own children.

He plans to tape it for broadcast on the local access television channel as a gift to all River Valley children, he said on Thursday.

The story is a spin-off from the legend of the animals celebrating Jesus’ birth and bringing him gifts.

In deFrees’ story, seven farm animals speak of the gifts they want to give to a baby born in a New England farmhouse. Such gifts as wisdom, beauty, the woods and the land.

After “The Big Brass Bed” was published last year, deFrees said many of his friends and acquaintances kept asking when he was going to write another one.

The proceeds from the first book went to the Jane Holt deFrees Scholarships Fund, and most of the proceeds from the second will also go there.

The first book sold 800 copies. Half the proceeds from the sales of the new book at the signings set for next week will go to the Rumford Historical Society.

The book signing schedule is: 1-2:30 p.m., Dec. 11, at the Mexico Public Library; 1-2:30 p.m., Dec. 12, at the Robinson House of the Bethel Historical Society; 1-2:30 p.m. Dec. 13, at the Rumford Public Library; and 1-2:30 p.m. Dec. 15 at the Pennacook Art Center in Rumford. The book will also be available through deFrees.

The soft-cover book is filled with colorful illustrations created by Wilton artist David Burgess. It is being printed by Penmor Lithographers Inc. of Lewiston.