This slight holiday offering presents Holly, a kitten adopted at Christmastime (hence her name), and follows her as she overcomes an initial shyness and establishes herself firmly in the family’s affections. Along the way she bears two kittens of her own but always remains “the boss.” The narrator never names herself, but we see in the second-to-last frame that she is in fact the illustrator: the now-grown Holly watches as she finishes a painting of Holly as a kitten. Brown (Mad Summer Night’s Dream, 1999, etc.) is at the top of her form here, her expressive charcoal, acrylic, and watercolor paintings capturing with humor and affection the cat’s adventures. In one image, a disgusted Holly tries to find refuge in the linen closet from her kittens; in another, a very proud Holly presents her owner—depicted only as a pair of feet on a chair—with a mouse. An understated text highlights the gentle irony in the paintings. It is a lovely piece of bookmaking: all the images are framed with a rounded top, giving them a church-window feeling. For all its beauty and cleverness, though, the book’s audience is unclear: published for children, there is no child in it, nor does it even attempt a plot that would engage a child reader. As a paean to a cat, it is sweet; as a Christmas gift for a cat lover, it is lovely; as a child’s book, it misses the mark. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-8050-6500-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2000
A forgettable effort that fails to capture any of the magical charm of Santa’s story. (Picture book. 3-6)
Wallace and Elkerton continue their series about catching elusive mythical creatures (How to Catch a Leprechaun, 2016, etc.) with this Christmas story about an elf who must avoid traps constructed by children before Santa’s annual visit.
The unnamed elf narrator is the sole helper traveling with Santa on his delivery rounds on Christmas Eve, with each house featuring a different type of trap for elves. The spunky elf avoids a mechanical “elf snatcher,” hidden in a plate of cookies, as well as simple traps made of tinsel, double-sided tape, and a cardboard box concealing a mean-looking cat. Another trap looks like a bomb hidden in a box of candy, and a complicated trap in a maze has an evil cowboy clown with a branding iron, leading to the elf’s cry, “Hey, you zapped my tushy!” The bomb trap and the branding iron seem to push the envelope of child-made inventions. The final trap is located in a family grocery store that’s booby-trapped with a “Dinner Cannon” shooting out food, including a final pizza that the elf and Santa share. The singsong, rhyming text has a forced cheeriness, full of golly-jolly-holly Christmas spirit and too many exclamation marks, as well as rhyming word pairs that miss the mark. (No, little elf-boy, “smarter” and “harder” do not rhyme.) Bold, busy illustrations in a cartoon style have a cheeky appeal with a focus on the freckle-faced white elf with auburn curls and a costume with a retro vibe. (Santa is also white.)
A forgettable effort that fails to capture any of the magical charm of Santa’s story. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4926-4631-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
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