Not one to stop for despite the appeal of the cartoony art style.
An intrepid member of Santa’s team saves Christmas.
When weary elves get into a fight just before Christmas Eve, Comet the reindeer steps in to break up the fisticuffs and is injured. The rhyming text describes how the doctor tells him he needs to rest and can’t help pull Santa’s sleigh that night, and then it reads, “Comet watched Santa get ready. / (His spot had been filled by / a rookie named Freddy.)” The singsong cadence and goofy phrasing of these lines is representative of the text as a whole, which goes on to reveal that Santa forgets to bring his bag filled with toys on the journey. No one notices this oversight since Freddy keeps them all entertained with silly songs. Injured Comet decides he must deliver the toys himself, and a comical sequence shows him struggling to lift an enormous bag onto his shoulders before giving up. Then he reads a tear-jerker of a letter to Santa from a selfless child, which inspires him to persist. He flies around the world in search of this child’s home, delivering toys until he finally finds the house he’s searching for in Oahu. At this point Santa calls “full of thanks-yous and praise, / so quick-thinking Comet / mentioned getting a raise,” an attempt at wit that both undercuts the message of selflessness and aims over the heads of most child readers. Santa presents White, and his elf employees are diverse.
Not one to stop for despite the appeal of the cartoony art style. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5420-4347-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Two Lions
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
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
Hee haw.
The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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