That quick-witted girl with the flyaway golden hair returns for her third original tale set a century ago in a northwoods logging community. When Beatrice meets three new friends from the big city of Montreal, she tells them, in her confident manner, all about Père Noël. To counteract the disbelief of her new friends, she promises to bring them a bell from Père Noël’s sleigh, a button from his cape and a curl from his beard. Beatrice waits up for Père Noël on Christmas Eve and handles him in her own inventive way, snipping off each of the three promised items of proof with plausible reasons for her acquisitions. Père Noël is a resplendent figure in white robes who shows his wise understanding of little girls. Solomon’s carefully researched watercolor illustrations show how Beatrice and her mother celebrate their holiday with French-Canadian traditions such as a homemade Bûche de Noël and an outdoor Christmas Eve feast before midnight mass. The old-fashioned cadences of the story and the muted, folk-art style of the illustrations complement each other perfectly in another winning entry in this clever and original series. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2006
ISBN: 0-689-87017-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2006
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
Turkey’s in the “kind of trouble where it’s almost Thanksgiving...and you’re the main course.” Accordingly, Turkey tries on disguise after disguise, from horse to cow to pig to sheep, at each iteration being told that he looks nothing like the animal he’s trying to mimic (which is quite true, as Harper’s quirky watercolors make crystal clear). He desperately squeezes a red rubber glove onto his head to pass as a rooster, only to overhear the farmer suggest a poultry plan B when he’s unable to turn up the turkey. Turkey’s horrified expression as he stands among the peppers and tomatoes—in November? Chalk it up to artistic license—is priceless, but his surroundings give him an idea. Good fun, but it may lead to a vegetarian table or two. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-7614-5529-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2009
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