Holly Homecoming: Christmas Kitten, Home At at Last by Robin Pulver

The stars still shown bright when Santa arrived home from his most important journey of the year.

He tucked his travelling companion inside his coat."Stay hidden, Cookie," he said. "We've got some persuading to do."

There is nothing more appealing that a little lost kitten on Christmas Eve, and even Santa is not immune to the appeal of a homeless little ginger kitty. Now all he has to do is convince Mrs. Claus that they should keep him.

All is well as they fly through the frigid wintry air back to North Pole headquarters. But as soon as Santa goes inside to begin his sales pitch, he finds he has another problem.

ACHOOOOOOO!

Mrs. Claus fusses around him, fearing that he's taken a chill. But the real cause soon becomes evident. Santa is massively allergic to that cute kitten. "We've been through this before," she points out with exasperation, and as Santa continues to sneeze, Mrs. Claus makes her point forcefully.

"I bet we can find the perfect child and the perfect home for Cookie," she says.

But how? Santa recalls a letter from a girl named Angela begging for a kitten for Christmas, but Santa has an inviolable policy: No pet deliveries without parental permission.

But Cookie, who has been playing happily during the discussion, knocking things off shelves and batting small objects around the workshop, seems to have found an unopened letter that must have fallen out of Santa's mailbag. Oh, Christmas serendipity! It's a letter from Angela's parents, with just one Christmas request:

"Could you possibly bring Angela a kitten?"

Robin Pulver's and Layne Johnson's Christmas Kitten, Home at Last (Albert Whitman, 2010) tells the jolly story of the year Santa made two Christmas Eve journeys, the second with just one very small and furry gift in his pack. Johnson's seasonally colored illustrations are well nigh irresistible, and Pulver tells the little story with just the right amount of serio-comic flair. As School Library Journal's reviewer puts it, "This is a sweet, fun read-aloud for the cat-loving crowd."