Were it not that the gently luminous features of the brilliant actress Geraldine Page, who appeared in Capote's Christmas Memory on TV last year, haunt this latest fictional memoir like a benign ghost, one might balk at the author's slide into commercial sentimentality. Again the boy and his childlike, middle-aged friend, "Miss Sook" here, prepare for a holiday. But instead of the exquisite ordinaries of a shared world, this time a contrived situation blocks out rather than illuminates the friendship and the character of Miss Sook. That vague and loving lady in her innocence and inexperience sets herself toward pumping charity into the boy, Buddy, as he suffers under the torments of a twelve-year-old bully, Odd Henderson. Odd is a poverty stricken hellion with a pride to match his meanness. Invited defiantly by Miss Sook to the clan's Thanksgiving, Odd is a social success, but Buddy has triumphantly observed him stealing Miss Sook's cameo, a talisman charged with private meanings. Buddy accuses Odd publicly and the remainder is slick as goose grease — Miss Sook ignores the theft; the good angel of Odd's nature is touched; Buddy is wooed back from his devastation at Miss Sook's defection by homilies and turkey. Alas, Miss Sook has taken to lecturing, but come Fall TV, assuredly Miss Page will bring her back to life. If you tune out on this one — tune in for the TV version. This brief tale will appear in McCalls.
Pub Date: Nov. 21, 1968
ISBN: 0679838988
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1968
BOOK REVIEW
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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