The Countdown! Five More Sleeps 'Til Christmas by Jimmy Fallon

What are the longest nights of the year? If you are a kid, it's not the dark nights around the winter solstice. It's the ones before Christmas!

JUST FIVE MORE SLEEPS TILL CHRISTMAS!

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT'S HERE?

I KNOW THAT SANTA IS COMING SOON,

"CAUSE I'VE BEEN GOOD ALL YEAR.

This kid has been unbelievably good! He's decked the halls with bells that jingle. He has nothing to fear from old Kris Kringle!

He's been a remarkable scholar. He's kept his pup well fed. He's eaten his food without complaint. But he dreads going to bed.

Why? It's those last five nights before Christmas with all those visions of sugar plums and cool new toys dancing in his head. Those five sleeps seem like a lifetime. He twists and turns. His eyes just won't close. It's thoughts of those gifts! So many of those!

The sleeps count down. Four? He walks the floor. Three? How much longer can it be?

He's down to just two sleeps! He's so excited he can't think of sleeping a wink!

And then it's Christmas Eve! There's even snow! The kid hustles about getting ready. Santa's snacks are out. Traditional songs are sung. Christmas stockings are hung.

ONE MORE SLEEP AND I'LL BE DONE!

Breathes there a kid who hasn't experienced Santa-induced insomnia? In Jimmy Fallon's jolly Christmas Countdown tale, 5 More Sleeps ‘til Christmas (Feiwel and Friends, 2020), his little red-haired hero lies awake late into the night with anticipation, although, as his dog can attest, not so late as the kid thinks. Now that Santa's returned to his polar place, it's time to start anticipating the next year's Christmas day, only 364 days away! Grownups know that the joys of anticipation may be remembered longer than the toys themselves. But Fallon's perfectly rhymed quatrains and Rich Deas' lively comic illustrations done in vivid colors of the season make this one a joy to read aloud for kids who just can't wait!

For more pre-holiday fun, share this delightful Max and Ruby Yuletide story, Max's Christmas (Max and Ruby) by the noted author-illustrator Rosemary Wells.

Too Many Tricks or Treats? The Twelve Days of Halloween by Jenna Lattice

ON THE FIRST DAY OF HALLOWEEN
WHAT SHOWED UP AT OUR DOOR?

ONE VERY EAGER
TRICK OR TREATER!

When most kids think of counting on Halloween, they think of toting up the candy bars in the loot piled in their plastic pumpkin.

But Jenna Lattice's The 12 Days of Halloween (Pictureback(R)) (Random House, 2017) offers youngsters a chance to count along as the usual articles of Halloween count up (or down) to the big day! First, we need to decorate the front porch--

Two stuffed scarecrows, three grinning pumpkins....

And how about creeping spiders? Black cats yowling? Haunts a'haunting? And to anchor the count, a line to repeat: (Two times! But who's counting?)

FIVE BAGS OF CANDY!

One by one, day by day, the Halloween icons appear in the scene, trailed by that one poor misinformed trick-or-treater, still sadly unsatisfied, hopefully following the red devils, screechy witches, and toothy vampires to the doorbell, until he at last he gets his long-anticipated reward.

Children who know the tune to "The Twelve Days of Christmas" will get a pre-tricking treat out of singing along with this one, and if they don't already know how to count to twelve, they will after all the incidental learning as they sing this repetitive rhyming and rhythmic song. And for that October holiday, enjoy the fun of the proceedings portrayed in jolly holiday style by illustrator Colleen Madden.

And for a little reader treats, there are 30 comic stickers in the back of the book. And at the very end everyone gets to shout out, "HAPPY HALLOWEEN!"

For more fun singing famous recycled folk tunes, read this one along with Lucille Colandro's lilting holiday countdown, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat! (A Board Book) (Read my review here).