Caped Christmas Crusaders: A Chick 'N' Pug Christmas by Jennifer Sattler

"SANTA CLAUS BRINGS PRESENTS AND SPREADS JOY TO EVERYONE ON CHRISTMAS!" PUG TELLS CHICK.

"HOW DOES HE DELIVER EVERYTHING IN ONE NIGHT?"

"HE FLIES THROUGH THE SKY!" SAYS PUG.

"SO HE'S A SUPER HERO!" SHOUTS CHICK. "DOES HE NEED A SIDEKICK?"

Fans of Chick 'n' Pug know that Chick has quite a thing for caped crusaders, but in this dynamic duo, Pug, for whom eating is second only to napping, is definitely deficient in the dynamics department. But Chick has enough pizzazz for them both, and she zooms into action to spread cheer with Pug as her own Super Santa.

"OOH! OOH! I WANT TO BE AN ELF!" SHE CRIES.

But not everybody is in the market for cheer! Duck ducks the big rubber ball Chick rolls toward him. The Dude, their old shaggy dog friend, just slobbers all over it. Neither of them seems especially over-joyed. Then Chick spots their old nemesis, Mr. Snuggle the cat, whose owner has decked him out as a "wittle weindeer." Mr. Snuggle is manifestly not in any mood for joy and cheer.

Between his itchy Santa suit and the lack of good cheer so far, Pug is about ready for a long winter's nap, when Chick spots a squirrel seriously schlepping an acorn toward a hollow in a tree.

"WE'D BE NUTS NOT TO HELP!" CHICK EXCLAIMS!

Chick rounds up what like an an acre of acorns and piles them up right in front of the hole in the tree where squirrel lives. Stuck outside, Squirrel has a tizzy tantrum right there on the snow.

"NO NEED TO THANK US!" CHICK WAVES CHEERILY.

Squirrel doesn't return the gesture, and Super Santa Pug 'n' Sidekick Chick seem strangely to have cleared the landscape of customers for their particular version of Christmas cheer.

"WHAT WOULD SANTA DO NOW?" WONDERS CHICK.

But Pug manages to stay awake long enough to supply his best friend with some seasonal joy, in Jennifer Sattler's latest little holiday story of her dynamic duo, in A Chick 'n' Pug Christmas (Bloomsbury Books, 2014). Pug and Chick are the perfect contrast, the classic odd couple, and Sattler's crisp and seriously silly cartoon illustrations draw of their humor from the contrasting body language of the two unlikely best buddies.

Sattler's other top-selling stories of her non-traditional twosome are Chick 'n' Pug and Chick 'n' Pug Meet the Dude. (Read my pugnacious reviews here.)