Holiday enchantment.
A child wakes to find Santa delivering presents, then spends the night peppering him with questions.
Caregivers will relate to Santa as he endures a seemingly endless barrage of questions. He is asked everything from “Did you read my letter?” to “Is your belly button innie or out?” St. Nick never replies—he can’t get a word in edgewise—but the child is cheerfully undeterred. Still asking question after question, the youngster joins Santa as he delivers more gifts and then heads to the North Pole. The text rhymes, though the rhyme scheme is inconsistent, making for a well-paced if slightly bumpy reading experience. The illustrations have a soft, smudged effect that evokes the feeling of a hazy memory or a fantasy—an apt pairing for the text, since at the book’s end, the child isn’t sure whether the experience was real or just a dream. The combination of warm yellows and deep blues conveys both winter’s cold and the holiday’s warmth. Jarvis incorporates fun details, such as a miniature Santa in a snow globe, curious pets looking on, and an elf directing the reindeer landing when Santa returns home. Clad in traditional garb and a pair of small spectacles, Santa is light-skinned, while the child is brown-skinned. The young protagonist’s dogged curiosity makes for a wholly original Yuletide tale, infused with the magic and wonder of Christmas.
Holiday enchantment. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781536238839
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 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
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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