COOKIE ANGEL
by Bethany Roberts & illustrated by Vladimir Vagin
Toys (and one cookie) come alive on Christmas Eve in this rather long and rather misguided story that tries too hard to stir up some holiday magic. The story opens and closes with whispering, magical snowflakes with tiny faces, blown like bubbles by Santa on the title page and into the story. A family with two children bakes a special cookie angel on Christmas Eve, which the parents hang on the top of the tree; during the night the angel and the toys under the tree come alive and interact. When the toys argue and act like spoiled children, the angel, a starchy sort of nanny figure, uses Christmas carols as a way to calm the toys and get them to behave. The angel uses lots of folksy expressions such as “bless my candy heart” and “glory to gumdrops,” which give her some personality, but the other toys are stock characters: a whiny doll, a naughty monkey and a kind teddy bear. Vagin’s illustrations are serviceable but unexceptional, and again the cookie angel is the only character that stands out in the art as well as in the text. (Picture book. 3-6)