Back to the Future: 'Twas the Night Before Christmas: A Visit to St. Nicholas illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith

"'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS... "

So begins America's favorite holiday story poem, composed for his own children by Clement C. Moore in 1822. First printed in the local newspaper and then picked up by other publications and reprinted in school readers, "A Visit from St. Nicholas" eventually found its way into picture book format. Now each fall publishing season features several special new editions of Moore's text, done up in many styles, cartoons, parodies, and gorgeous, full-color form in which famous illustrators compete to find new and creative ways to portray that famous midnight intruder who never fails to leave filled stockings "by the chimney with care."

Forthcoming early, with plenty of time to order for the holidays is Houghton Mifflin's revised and new edition. For this one the publisher echews the current crop of artists in a return to the past, back to the 1912 edition of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas (Holiday Classics) (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), featuring the vintage artwork of the illustrious turn of the nineteenth-century illustrator, Jessie Willcox Smith. Smith, known for her work on several classic children's books, was a student of Howard Pyle, noted for his heroic illustrations in The Story of King Arthur and His Knights (Sterling Unabridged Classics) and The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood (Sterling Unabridged Classics).

For Clement C. Moore's classic, however, artist Jessie Willcox Smith avoids the heroic, picturing her St. Nicholas faithfully as a "jolly old elf," half the height of the father who cautiously observes him, indeed plump and elfish, with stumpy legs and elfin brown fur garb without white trim, with pointed cap unadorned by the usual fur pom-pom atop it, more a rotund Brownie than super-sized benefactor. Artist Smith's scale is modest as well, with a plain brown fireplace from which hang ten, well-worn socks, in varying sizes, from a string across the fireplace front. The children nestle, several to a bed under flowered quilts, and Papa in his nightshirt and cap emerges, a little disgruntled, from his canopied, side-curtained bed to peer out the mullioned window-paned shutters at St. Nicholas landing noisily on his lawn.

Santa's reindeer and sled are miniature, as Clark describes them, dwarfed by his huge, cram-jammed toy bag, and this Santa has to look way up as he confronts Papa in the hallway. Smith's vignettes are set against bright white pages, centered like medallions, but not without jolly details of St. Nicolas's largess spilling from his pack. The Saint departs in an appropriately snow-decorated scene flanked by frozen evergreens, under a full yellow moon as expected, but eschewing the sight of saint and sled actually taking flight. Smith sets her text in centered paragraphs with large, red initial capitals, and adds decorations in the form of a red-beribboned girl saying her prayers on the first page and a tiny red-overalled bear adorning a small round box on the final page.

All in all, Jessie Willcox Smith's version of this classic holiday story is a lovely choice for holiday reading and gifting, child-sized and child-friendly, and a nice addition to the holiday book shelf.

Calendar Haiku: Hi, Koo! by Jon Muth

ICICLES
REACH DOWN WITH DRIPPING FINGERS.
WILL YOU TOUCH THE GROUND?

In the time of the turning of seasons, we look at nature more closely. Notable author/illustrator Jon Muth believes that a "haiku... is an instant capture in words of an image [which] reminds us that our own human nature is not a separate form of nature," and uses this heightened awareness as the backdrop for his "year of seasons."

As his spokesman, Muth brings back his little panda character, Koo, and lets him wander gently through the seasons, showing us what we might otherwise overlook in each time. Here's little Koo, revisiting a memorable moment in Ezra John Keats' classic, The Snowy Day, as a snow-laden branch dumps a clump on his head:

KING!
MY CROWN A GIFT
FROM A SNOWY BRANCH.

A Caldecott award-winning illustrator, Jon Muth shows off his admirable pen-and-ink draftsmanship, married to soft watercolor wash,  giving us vignettes which invite the eye to linger, as when we see Koo celebrating his snow-clump coronation, as a bright red cardinal whose landing on the branch caused the avalanche, enjoys the results of his mischief. And during a long summer twilight, Koo and two kids stay outside to play with light and shadow:

FLASHLIGHTS
SPARKLE IN PUDDLES.
SHADOWS CLIMB TREES.

Muth has an easy-going take in his free-form haiku, each one a word picture greatly amplified by his lovely full-page spreads done in his impressionistic realism, with touches of humor and joy. As a added attraction, Muth also tucks in a surprise alphabet lesson, with the letters in order appearing as a capital letter in each of his 26 poems.

John Muth's Hi, Koo!: A Year of Seasons (Scholastic Press, 2014) is a thoroughly delightful example of the high art of the picture book, a miraculous melding of language and images in which both companionship and nature itself have starring roles. A book to treasure, for quiet sharing or for use with classes studying the seasons, the alphabet, or poetry.

Kirkus gives this one a starred review, saying "Throughout, condensed poetic image coupled with spare illustration yields huge effect; in a word, magical."

Up and Down and Back Again: A Meal of the Stars by Dana Jensen

with/fire/and/fury/
the/rocket/ blasts/
across/the/cerulean/sky/
toward/the/pitch/-black/beauty /
of/endless/silent/space

In a slim book of seventeen poems, Dana Jensen's A Meal of the Stars: Poems Up and Down (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012) celebrates all things vertical, both from the bottom up, from earth to outer space, and from the top down, as in the case of falling waters:

roaring/crashing/sparkling/and/white
oh/what/a/thunder/
heaving/its/mighty/heart/
the/waterfall/splashes/out/
its/ lovely/blue/music
on/the/slippery/rocks/below.

What makes Jensen's poems unique is that all of the poems are presented one word per line, ten poems from the bottom up, as they describe things that go up--a giraffe's neck, a zipper, a rocket, an elevator, a winter tree with a nest at the top, to be read, bottom up, as in this one:

again
hatch
to
songs
and
birds
and
eggs
and
spring...

...and seven poems are printed the customary way, from top to bottom:

the
bongs
of
the
far-
off
bells
float
down....

This design device is not entirely new to children's poetry, with quite a few earlier books presenting "shaped poems" with the lines of type laid out on page to form the outline of their subjects. Jensen's forthcoming volume is unique in its focus upon things that are vertical in orientation, and her use of this device really focuses the reader on the descriptive flow of her words. Some of the poems are lyric and some have appealing touches of humor, such as the one describing Dad's ascent rung by rung up a long ladder to the top of the roof to paint... "the/spot/he/missed/the/first/time/up and a zipper which must be zipped... all the way so that snowflakes/don't/sneak/in/and/tickle/me." Each word here gains weight when it is the only one on a line, with no meter or verse form to distract from the flow.

Notable artist Tricia Tusa contributes her charming ink and watercolor illustrations, her familiar comic kid figures extending the text in pictures which invite long looks, making this debut a real contribution to this year's poetry offerings, lots of fun to read silently or aloud for the up-coming Poetry Month.

Roll 'Em! Cars Galore by Peter Stein

CARS AND MORE CARS. DOING THE CHORE CARS. REV 'EM UP AND MAKE 'EM GO CARS!

A thoroughly modern, digitally illustrated picture book with a deliciously retro feel, Peter Stern's and Bob Staake's Cars Galore (Candlewick Press, 2011) features a seemingly endless passing parade of creatively varied vehicles, with continuously curvaceous roadways which sinuously swirl and circle and double back over themselves in a style which keeps the eye in motion and the pages turning.

Stern's energetically rhyming text, echoing the fifties classics of Dr. Seuss and P.D. Eastman, is both familiar and unique, in a rocking urban setting in which cars are the stars:

JAZZ CAR, SOUL CAR. ROCK 'N' ROLL CAR. BLUES CAR, SONG CAR. SING-A-LONG CAR.

And artist Bob Staake's preposterous cars--shark cars, Noah's Ark as zoomobile cars, cars with multiple centipede legs,-stinky, smelling like a skunk cars--and their exotic passengers will keep readers' poring over the visual humor on each double-page spread even as their fingers itch to turn the page and see what's next in this motor mania.

Our family cars are all things to us--part living room, part convenient appliance, and part family pet--all without losing their innate mystique of freedom, and this affection shines through on each imaginative page. There's even a promise for the youngest motorhead reader:

FUN DRIVE, SUN DRIVE, GOTTA RUN DRIVE! DREAM DRIVE, COOL DRIVE... SOMEDAY YOU'LL DRIVE!

Mom's Eve: The Night Before Mother's Day by Natasha Wing

'Twas the night before Mother's Day when as quiet as a mouse,
Dad told us his plan to get Mom out of the house.

Her sneakers were set by the doorway with care,
In hopes that her running pals soon would be there.

Then Mom in her sweatsuit and red baseball cap,
Plugged in her earphones and jogged off in a snap.

With Mom safely out of the way for a while, Dad and the two kids whirl into action. There's the fancy cake to be made, handmade cards to be designed, and a very special handwritten coupon enclosed, one that Mom needs a lot! With their products well hidden, the two girls nestle snugly in bed with visions of Mom's joy dancing in their heads.

And in the morning, surprise! there's a special Mom bouquet, a crown, and a throne all ready for her, and she is feted with her coupon for a home spa treatment.

And after her mani and pedi, mud mask, and massage session, Mom is ready for her guest appearance at Dad's gourmet brunch.

Her eyes--how they sparkled!
Her brown hair--how curly.
Her cheeks were like roses,
Her skirt--very twirly!

Natasha Wing's latest holiday parody on The Night Before Christmas model, The Night Before Mother's Day (Reading Railroad) (Grosset & Dunlap, 2010) is a sweet treat to help celebrate that special day for mothers. Amy Wummer's charming portrayal of a small family pitching in to provide their own do-it-yourself celebration and Wing's familiar format which touches just enough on the original's rhyme scheme and meter make this one a joy to read aloud, and at a bargain price, it's a first choice for Mother's Day story time.

Just Look: This Is The Day by Nancy White Carlstrom

Tiptoe out into the morning world
and stretch like a deer
reaching for an apple
high on the golden tree.
Stretch through the dew diamonds
glistening on the lawn
where you feed.

Nancy White Carlstrom's just-published This Is the Day! (Zondervan, 2009) draws its theme from a line in Psalms: "This is the day which the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it." Carlson's theme is that there is much to rejoice in if we only look at the world with a fresh eye. Greatly abetted by the beautiful paintings of illustrator Richard Cowdrey, Carlson's free verse helps young readers look for and see the beauty of the natural world around them.

Organized with daily vignettes, Carlson describes a scene for each day of the week.

Sense the garden's sweet rose
and your nose might meet a tiny tree frog.
Clap for the river otter
who flips in the water
but waddles across the grass,
through cottonwood fuzz,
finding a way from the pond to the bay.

Each day brings a new scene until Sunday find the family picnicking beside a lighthouse overlooking the sea.

A super pod of orca whales
has been invited,
and here they come--
breaching,
spy hopping,
clicking,
whistling,
calling,
spraying and praising.

This is a book which is hard to categorize--part poetry, part observation of nature, and part song of praise for creation. The stunning illustrations, which show so well the texture of petal, feather, whisker, fruit, and fur--are tied together by the great white heron which appears in each full-page painting. Although the text is quite evocative in its way, the pictures are what will hold the reader's full attention and indeed speak for themselves in this song of praise to the beauty of the world.

Carlstrom is, of course, the noted author of the inimitable Jesse Bear books, beginning with that classic story-in-rhyme Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?