CHILDREN from Ledbury are set to become familiar faces in the United States.

The children feature in a new book on Christmas nativity plays which comes out this August in both the UK and the USA.

The book, A Children's Nativity - The Christmas Story Through the Eyes of a Child, is published by HarperCollins and will feature youngsters from the primary schools of Much Marcle, Ashperton, Ledbury and Cradley.

It is the work of Church Lane photographer Richard Surman, whose eldest son Carlos, aged 11, designed the cut-out animals and scenery used in the shoots.

Both Carlos and his brother Gabriel, aged eight, feature in the book as kings.

Their father, Richard, said: "There's a little bit of mischief in the book, which is quite intentional.

"We have drawn on the common experience that most of us have of those endless Christmas plays with disgruntled angels singing 'Susannah in the Highest' by mistake.

"We have angels wings coming off and flipping back. It was my intention to cater for that kind of thing on camera. The charm is in the things that go wrong."

During one shoot, a three-year-old from Little Marcle, Harmony Skittery, wandered on to the set to be close to her big brother, Oliver, who was playing a shepherd. This moment now features in the book.

Mr Surman is well known for his Book of Church Cats and as the photographer for this year's Morgan calendar.

He thought up the idea for the nativity book in conversation with his HarperCollins editor, Elspeth Taylor.

He said: "The text comes from simply talking to a number of children and getting them to tell me about the Christmas story in their own words."

To complete the book, Mr Surman took around 500 photographs in his Church Lane studio.