A sweetly satisfying holiday tale of generosity and compassion.
A young boy and his goat companion search the forest on Yalda Night, a Persian holiday observed on the longest night of the year.
“For a perfect Yalda Night,” the unseen narrator tells us, “you need a pomegranate.” Tan-skinned, rosy-cheeked Pouya is excited to see one last pomegranate on the tree. Before he gets far, though, a cold wind “snatches the pomegranate,” and it rolls away. Meandering through the woods, Pouya asks Rabbit if she’s seen the fruit. Rabbit explains that she took just a few seeds before passing the pomegranate on to Bear; when questioned, Bear says he did the same before giving the fruit to Fox. Rushing to find Fox, Pouya and his goat discover her sharing the seeds with her overjoyed little ones. Pouya decides that he and his family can wait until next year for another pomegranate, but the wind has one last trick: blowing in enough pomegranates for his whole family. In this tale published in Belgium and the Netherlands and translated from Dutch, Nakhaei offers a sweet spin on a familiar trope as Pouya questions each of the animals. Dreamy, watercolorlike images depict a fairy-tale landscape full of clouds, warm foliage, and winter snow. Despite Pouya’s anxiety, this is a friendly forest; rather than being scary, lumbering Bear seems a bit of a goof, while Fox’s children are darling.
A sweetly satisfying holiday tale of generosity and compassion. (information on Yalda) (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9798890630896
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clavis
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
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
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BOOK REVIEW
Lighthearted and un-scary enough for bedtime.
Talk show host Fallon and illustrator Deas follow up 5 More Sleeps ’Til Christmas (2020) with a story of a youngster preparing for Halloween.
“It’s FIVE more sleeps ’til Halloween, / that spooky time of year / where all the ghosts are wide awake / as nighttime’s drawing near.” A calendar page with a large numeral 5 curls before a bright orange pumpkin. An orange-haired, light-skinned moppet wearing an enormous pair of blue glasses is hunkered down in bed with Gary the dog, whose vibrant blue coloring matches the bedspread. Occasionally accompanied by a sibling, the young narrator counts down day by day, describing seasonal activities: picking out a costume, navigating a corn maze, watching scary movies, taking part in a parade, going on a hayride, and trick-or-treating. The rhyming verses are sometimes a bit rocky but always fun. The text is periodically punctuated by the word boo, which appears in large, cartoonlike lettering; that, along with the calendar countdown motif, adds a pleasant repetition. Though the child confides feelings of trepidation (“What if bats fly in my room? / I think I’ll close my window now”), descriptions of scary moments are always offset by brightly colored, exuberant artwork. Humor abounds: Gary looks both hilarious and sweet dressed in a ghost costume that matches the narrator’s. The final page neatly closes the circle as the child goes from anticipating the holiday to participating in it and back again.
Lighthearted and un-scary enough for bedtime. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781250857798
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
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