Whose Boots? Frozen--Olaf's Night Before Christmas by Jessica Julius

'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS....

THE STOCKINGS WERE HUNG BY THE CHIMNEY WITH CARE...

BUT WHY?

HAD THEY GOTTEN TOO WET? WERE THEY LEFT THERE TO DRY?

Like his toddler fans, Olaf the Snowman is new to this stuff, and he doesn't quite understand all the Christmas fuss.

Stockings? What's with that?

Elsa is asleep while the northern lights play in the night sky, but Olaf is wide awake, when out on the lawn he hears a clatter.

It's a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer! That's can't be Kistolph, can it?

And then there's a stir on the roof and soot floating down from the chimney. Who could it be?

"HIS BOOTS WERE SO BLACK. AND HIS PANTS WERE ALL RED...

BUT WHERE WAS HIS HEAD?"

To the familiar rhyme and meter of Clement Clarke Moore's A Visit from St. Nicholas, Olaf the Snowman stands in for the author in the role of the guy who spies on Santa, as St. Nick drops by to snack on some krumkake and delivers the goods for everyone to find on Christmas morning, in Jessica Julius' lighthearted take off for small fans of the folks from Disney's Frozen. And the whole cast is there for an arctic Christmas Party in Frozen Olaf's Night Before Christmas Book & CD (Disney Press, 2015). As pre-prep for the Christmas Eve scene or as a dandy stocking stuffer, this one is sure to please the tots with glittering scenes and happy verses.

Snow Job: Harold at the North Pole by Crockett Johnson

IT WAS CHRISTMAS EVE, AND HAROLD HAD TO HAVE A CHRISTMAS TREE BEFORE SANTA CLAUS CAME.

SO HE SET OUT FOR THE NORTH WOODS.

Traveling is easy for Harold, who takes out his famous purple crayon and draws himself the Big Dipper to steer by. And as he trudges north through a blizzard, he creates a snowman, and when his snow guy looks shivery, Harold gives him his own red muffler to wear.

And when the snow piles up so deep that Harold can't tell where he is, he draws himself a purple candy-cane North Pole. Figuring Santa's workshop must be near, he shinnies up the Pole to get his bearings. Then he draws a chimney and slides down into the Claus family workshop, where he helps Santa out by drawing him an extra large sleigh and a team of purple reindeer for his big trip.

HAROLD WOULD HAVE LIKED TO RIDE WITH SANTA, BUT HE STILL NEEDED A CHRISTMAS TREE.

Hey, wait! Harold doesn't need to find the perfect evergreen tree as long as he has his purple crayon! Decorations? No problem for an artist like Harold, who heads home and draws the tree, the decorations, his stocking, and a cozily warm fireplace to hang it from. Now he's ready to wait up for Santa.

Millions of children have grown up enjoying the many adventures of Harold and the Purple Crayon (Purple Crayon Books), and Harold's Christmas Eve adventure is just as fresh and charming as always, in this brand-new edition of Harold at the North Pole (Harper Books, 2015 (rev. ed.) by Crockett Johnson. Perhaps the creator of the concept of the "metafiction" picture book, the Caldecott-winning Johnson offers us that purple crayon that's just as ever-sharp and an imaginative little artist who is just as creative as ever--in a Christmas story that has truly become evergreen.

Misfits Make Merry: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: Who Delivers Christmas? (Slide and Find)

Guess who is fifty years old this Christmas?

That's right! It's Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, so who better than Rudolph to be the guide for finding out who brings the gifts at Christmas?

Roger Priddy Books' Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Slide and Find (Priddy Books/St. Martin's Press, 2014) takes a page from Microsoft and does it with.... windows. Pridd's clever "slide-and-find" board book takes young fingers and I spy eyes through a series of 14 sliding window shades which reveal all those behind-the-scenes clues needed to deliver the goods on Christmas Eve.

Who lives at the North Pole? Slide the four windows and find out who: Santa Claus, an elf, and two reindeer, one of which has a large red nose. But who knows where Santa's cargo has gone?

Meanwhile, poor Rudolph is having his own problems. The other reindeer laugh and shut him out of their games. Rudolph and his fellow oddball Hermey run away to find the missing toys, and find themselves on the Island of Misfits. But there, cleverly concealed behind four windows with clues on their shades, there they are--a doll, train stuffed elephant, and a toy lion.

Now the sleigh load is located, but just then a huge storm blows in at the moment that Rudolph and Hermey come back, just in time for Santa to notice Rudolph's special talent.

Now who delivers Christmas? Who saved Christmas? Find the last four windows and slide to find out WHO? Fingers are exercised and the whole story is told as the windows reveal the answers to the familiar song-story in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Slide and Find.

Hai-Cool! Santa Clauses: Short Poems from the North Pole by Bob Raczka

Santa is a man of many talents--toy maker, reindeer trainer, sleigh pilot, world traveler. But did you know that he is also a poet?

Years ago, Mrs. Claus gave him a book of haiku. Santa loved these poems. He was inspired to write his own.

There are thousands of Santa stories, but not very much in the way of Santa poetry, except, of course, for that long poem about his famous visit to a house with the insomniac dad which launched St. Nick's celebrity.

But this one is rare--not written in quaint iambs, but in Santa's favorite poetic form, if we are to believe Bob Raczka, whose new holiday book, Santa Clauses: Short Poems from the North Pole (Carolrhoda Picture Books) (Junior Library Guild Selection) (CarolRhoda Books, 2014) ascribes an advent assortment of twenty-five haiku from Santa's own typewriter. Here's poet St. Nicholas-san, reflecting upon the first day of the Christmas rush:

December 1:
The wishes blow in
from my over-filled mailbox.
December's first storm.

Raczka's haiku vary as the days get over toward the big day, sometimes sweet and nostalgic, sometimes with quite poetic imagery, and one with self-deprecatory humor as Santa struggles to button up his too-tight red tunic.

December 3:
Mrs. Claus makes a snow
angel and becomes a
little girl again.

December 4:
Sprinkling sand on my
snow-covered steps, thinking
of nutmeg on eggnog.


December 24:
Which is packed tighter,
the sack full of toys or the
red suit full of me?

Raczka ghost-writes Santa's Japanese haiku with elan and his collaborator, artist Chuck Groenink, gives them a perfect setting in his warm and humorous, but amazingly striking illustrations in mixed media, showing both folksy-cozy indoor scenes of the Claus cottage and lovely snowscapes alive with beauty. Published in a snow storm of rave reviews. this one may become a new classic, perfect for reading an entry each night of the days of Christmas to come. "A rare treat," says Kirkus Reviews.

Designated Santa Sub: CC Claus: A Baseball Christmas Story by CC Sabathia and Ray Negron

IT WAS CHRISTMAS EVE AND EVERYTHING WAS READY AT THE SABATHIA HOUSE.

THE ONLY THINGS MISSING WERE THE PRESENTS SANTA WOULD LEAVE UNDER THE TREE.

Oldest child Carsten is allowed to stay up late with his dad, CC, while he catches up on his fan mail. But Carsten notices a small envelope not addressed to his dad, but to Santa Claus!

Dear Santa,
We had a terrible flood and lost all our toys. Can you bring my brothers baseballs and gloves?
Love,
Anabelle

No baseball equipment? This is serious! Carsten persuades his dad that they must get Anabelle's letter to Santa before he takes off for his Christmas Eve flight.

"How do we get there, Dad?" asked Carsten.

"We go North!" said CC.

CC and Carsten jump in the car and take off in the snow for the North Pole. (This IS a Christmas story, you know.) But when they arrive at the Claus residence, things are not going well. Santa is sneezing, and the elves are swamped with unfinished toys. Who're you going to call for a rush job at the last minute before the sleigh lifts off?

CC knows. He calls THE BOSS, George Steinbrenner.

Mr. Steinbrenner is a take-charge guy, and he's on it. But even he can't manufacture baseball equipment on such short order. Who can do it?

Steinbrenner calls on... the THE GHOSTS OF BASEBALL PAST!

"Get me Ted Williams, Satchel Page, Phil Rizzuto, Bob Feller, Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Roberto Clemente, Tetsharu Kawakamui, Jackie Robinson, Elston Howard....!" he barks.

And the baseball greats report for action and come through in the clutch, even doing up a doll for Anabelle just in time. But by this time, Santa is seriously sick, coughing and sniffling, so CC borrows a spare Santa cap for himself and an elfin cap for Carsten, and, as Clemente serenades them with "Feliz Navidad," they are ready to pinch-hit for St. Nick.

And it's a grand slam all around the waiting world in Ray Negron's CC Claus: A Baseball Christmas Story (HarperCollins, 2014), as CC Sabathia and Carsten touch all the bases around the globe to bring Christmas home  to all.  Of course, subbing for Santa is not a new plot in Christmas literature, but Negron manages a slightly tongue-in-cheek "willing suspension of disbelief" mood in this baseball-themed holiday fantasy, greatly assisted by artist Laura Seeley's terrific illustrations, carrying off faithful caricatures of twenty-one gone-but-not-forgotten baseball legends, elves, children, Santa, his missus and reindeer, and scenic snowy landscapes which enable this fantastical plot line to, er, get off the ground.  Baseball fans will particularly enjoy this story, and if they are too young to know much about the featured baseball greats who come off the bench to save the day, there is an appendix with thumbnail biographical sketches of the careers of those twenty-one spirits of baseball history.

Reindeer Countdown: Eight Jolly Reindeer by Ilanit Oliver and Jacqueline Rogers

SIX JOLLY REINDEER, STRETCHING UP TO HEAVEN.

UP GOES DONDER, AND THEN THERE WERE...

What number comes before eight? Which reindeer does Santa urge on next?

These reindeer do more than mount to the rooftop, click, click, click! As they wait to be called to their place in harness, they limber up, stretching, kicking a soccer ball around, doing some jumping jacks, and running in place.

The countdown continues from eight down to one, from Dasher right through Dancer, Prancer, and Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donder, and Blitzen.

With tabs for each reindeer and sturdy board book composition, this one is just right for small fingers and young minds, with the added bonus of rhyming text and the practice of guessing the next number in the countdown with each page turn. There's a bit of Christmas learning as well as fun in Ilanit Oliver's Eight Jolly Reindeer (Scholastic/Cartwheel Books, 2014). Jacqueline Roger's illustrations offer everything but, alas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in this jolly holiday book, perfect for preschool stocking stuffing.

Night Flight: The Snowman and the Snowdog

"COME ON!" CRIED BILLY TO HIS DOG. "WERE HERE! LET'S EXPLORE OUR NEW HOME!"

BUT BILLY'S DOG WAS OLD AND TIRED. HE BECAME SLOWER AND SLOWER, AND THEN ONE DAY HE DIED.

Billy's first days in his new house are sad, but as winter sets in, he explores the old house by himself, still missing his dog. Then, one day, he finds a loose floorboard, and underneath it a shoebox with some intriguing contents--a worn and floppy green hat, some lumps of coal, and a shriveled tangerine. It's a mystery, but when Billy wakes to find a deep snowfall outside, he immediately sees what to do with his find.

Outside Billy builds a snowman, placing the old hat on his head, wrapping the scarf around his neck, giving him a big smile and buttons with the lumps of coal, and placing a new tangerine in place for his nose. Then Billy has an inspiration. He shapes a snowdog, just like his own dog, to stand beside the snowman and keep him company.

Around midnight, Billy is wakened by a familiar bark and looks out his window.

SOMETHING MAGICAL HAD HAPPENED.

SNOWMAN AND SNOWDOG CAME ALIVE!

The Snowman lifts Billy and Snowdog in his arms and suddenly they are flying through the midnight blue sky, filled with stars and then with a host of soaring snowmen! Billy is dizzy with the thrill of it all. At the North Pole, he meets Santa, who gives him a special gift.

Back home again, Billy can hardly speak, but he whispers that he wishes the Snowman and Snowdog could stay with him. Then he remembers Santa's present and opens it to find a dog collar. He puts it around Snowdog's neck.

"THERE, JUST LIKE A REAL DOG," HE SAID.

AND WHERE THE SNOWDOG HAD BEEN... STOOD A REAL DOG, HIS TAIL WAGGING.

With the approval of Raymond Briggs, creator of the original 1982 The Snowman, this new companion book, The Snowman and the Snowdog (Random House, 2014) captures some of the magic of Brigg's classic, with the addition of the sure-fire kid-pleasing elements of a Christmas puppy and a visit to Santa's North Pole workshop. Artists Hilary Audus and Joanna Harrison create the look of Brigg's Snowman nearly perfectly, but as a whole the work does not quite match the charm and wry visual humor of the wordless original. To see Brigg's boy putting the Snowman to bed in his family's chest-type freezer or the Snowman fanning himself in front of the family fridge to cool off, make sure that the original is "read" first in tandem with this sequel. Not to be missed is the award-winning video of Brigg's book, Aardman: The Snowman, and there is also a new DVD of the companion book, The Snowman and The Snowdog.

Together, these books and videos make for happy holiday giving, and for go-with stocking stuffers, there are also the plush toy tie-ins, The Snowman Plush Toy and The Snowman Snowdog Soft Toy.

For more, um, "frosty" snowman fun, don't miss Caralyn Buehner's and Mark Teague's best-selling snowy series, Snowmen at Night, Snowmen at Christmas, Snowmen at Play, and Snowmen at Work. Check out my cool reviews here.

Waiting for Christmas: Merry Christmas, Ollie! by Olivier Dunrea

OLLIE IS WAITING. THE GOSLINGS ARE WAITING, WAITING FOR CHRISTMAS.

WAITING FOR FATHER CHRISTMAS GOOSE!

Gossie and Gertie, BooBoo and Peedie, and little Ollie, all are eager for Christmas. They know they have to wait. But goslings wait in different ways.

A Christmasy snow begins to fall on Ollie as he lies on the snow, watching the sky with single-minded determination on his face.

Gossie and Gertie stay busy preparing for the big day. They hang their red and green boots up in the barn for when Father Christmas Goose brings their gifts.

BooBoo and Peedie follow with their stripy stockings and hang them beside Gossie and Gertie's boots.

But Ollie can't think about anything but Christmas. Where is Father Christmas? Why doesn't he come? He stomps through the snow, finds a snow hill, and plops down, facing in the direction where Father Christmas always comes.

"I WANT CHRISTMAS NOW!" SHOUTS OLLIE.

And of course, Father Christmas Goose eventually flaps into view, bells jingling, in Olivier Dunrea's classic board book edition of Merry Christmas, Ollie board book (Gossie & Friends) (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). Dunrea's trademark illustrations of the gang of goslings preparing for Christmas are totally charming, and little Ollie's anticipation anxiety adds a touch of humor to the mix of characters. Dunrea's deft hand with small, watercolored artwork, set center page against bright white backgrounds, feature well-delineated personalities for each little goose, while Ollie's stubborn resolve carries the action in a relentless left-to-right direction until Father Christmas soars in from page right. Fun for toddlers eager for the big day, fans of the many Gosling adventures, and easy enough for emergent readers to read it to them--while they wait.

Monster Merriment: Frankenstein and the Fright before Christmas by Ludwurst Bemonster

IT WAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS AND POOR MISS DEVEL
WAS HASSLED AND HARRIED AND NOT FEELING WELL.
THE MONSTERS' BED MANNERS HAD TAKEN THEIR TOLL.
THEY'D LOST THEIR HEADS! THEY WERE OUT OF CONTROL.

SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT!

Miss Devel rises from her gurney, dons her lab coat and goggles, and scurries downstairs where the little monsters are sporting various household appliances--laptops, toasters, vintage Victrolas--where their heads should be. She does her best to sort out the mixup, with marginal success. But no sooner does she get the small monsters to pull out their teeth, wet their beds, and settle down, something else is not quite right.

FOR OFF IN THE DISTANCE SHE HEARD SUCH A CLATTER
SHE SPRANG FROM HER SLEEP TO SEE WHAT WAS THE MATTER!

Little Frankenstein crashes through the castle door with a fir tree fresh from the graveyard decorated with bats and bones, just as Miss Devel hears a sound from the rooftop:

ON WHOZIT, ON WHATZIT, ON ALL OF YOU OTHERS!

Santa, his sleigh, and his full pack crash through the rickety roof, and among the creepy contents of his sack are replacement heads for all the little monsters. After having a giggly good time trying on each other's heads, the monsters finally get it right, and as a reward Santa offers them all a sleepover at the North Pole, while Miss Devel gladly takes the option of a night off and returns to her gurney for a monster-free GOODNIGHT!

In their Frankenstein's Fright Before Christmas (Feiwel and Friends Fiends, 2014), Rick Walton and Nathan Hale morph together to take on the tropes of two classics, Ludwig Bemelman's Madeline and Clement Clarke Moore's The Night Before Christmas in a monster mash that would tickle even the Grinch's funny bone. Using Bemelman's familiar verse form and illustrative style with a haunted castle setting for St. Nick's visit, the two create a Christmas spoof that brings down the house (almost). Parodying two classics of kid lit simultaneously is no small feat, but as Ludworst Bemonster, this duo carries off this rather sophisticated parody with elan, frightful fun, and monstrous mirth. Savvy young readers will recognize what Walton and Hale are up to here and find this one a happy seasonal stocking stuffer.

Walton's and Hale's first collaboration was Frankenstein (read my 2012 review here.)

Santa Paws? The Animals' Santa by Jan Brett

IT'S YOUR FIRST CHRISTMAS EVER, LITTLE SNOW."

THE ANIMALS' SANTA COMES TONIGHT," BIG SNOWSHOE TOLD HIS LITTLE BROTHER.

"I THINK YOU ARE FOOLING ME," SAID LITTLE SNOW.

The little snowshoe hare is skeptical. Who could this Santa be? Hasn't anyone ever found his tracks? Somebody must have seen him!

Little Shoe sets out on a fact-finding mission. He interviews Porcupine, Squirrel, Raven, and Arctic Fox, who describe how the gifts just seemed to drop from above for them. They each have their own ideas--from a mouse to a white wolf--but Little Shoe thinks they are all wrong. And he's going to prove it.

Meanwhile Big Snowshoe decides it is time to put up some Christmas decorations, and breaking the ice on the stream, he hangs the frozen shards from the fir branches to make Yuletide wind chimes. It's all quite lovely, but Little Shoe sees no trace of this animals' Santa anywhere.

BUT SUDDENLY A BUNDLE OF FRESH CLOVER FALLS AT HIS FEET!

A year without a new Jan Brett holiday story is like a winter without a snowflake, and this year we're in luck with Brett's latest, The Animals' Santa (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2014).  Filled with her painstakingly detailed draftsmanship  and glorious colors set against the whitest of snowfalls, this latest Brett tale tells the old story of the little doubter who sets out to prove who or what Santa really is. With her trademark foreshadowing borders decorating each delightful page, this is yet another great story to join her many Christmas classics, Home for Christmas, The Wild Christmas Reindeer, Christmas Trolls, The Night Before Christmas, Who's That Knocking on Christmas Eve? and The Twelve Days of Christmas, to cite some of Brett's many holiday gifts to children.

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.

Once More Down the Chimney : The Night Before Christmas illustrated by Holly Hobbie

It is a blue and silver midnight, snow settling over a long and low log cottage and bare trees. Only a lonely snowman and a prowling red fox stand watch to witness a flash in the sky and a sleigh descending on that low rooftop, the lead reindeer just swerving to miss the chimney.

Inside the mice are sleeping, and so are the children, one toddler and two sisters and a brother, in their cozy room, while dad is just shedding his robe and slippers to slip in beside his sleeping wife.

The sudden clatter above wakes the snoozing cat; the toddler sits bolt upright between his sleeping siblings, eyes wide; and Dad dashes to the window, tugs it open to peer out and is chilled by a swirl of snowflakes invading the bedroom.

Followed by the curious cat, the toddler in his little drop-seat footie sleeper pads down the stairs carefully, while Dad, believing he is the only one up, flattens himself against the dining room wall as someone emerges from the fortuitously unlit fireplace, a someone in a long, fur-trimmed red robe and black boots.

In disbelief Dad runs his hands through his already disheveled hair, and the tot and cat are astonished at what they see going on beside their tree. Only the cat approaches the midnight visitor, tail up, to get a treat.

Yep. It's A Visit from St. Nicholas, all right, no doubt about it!

Veteran illustrator Holly Hobbie has a freshly-conceived and illustrated version of The Night Before Christmas (Little Brown, 2013) which supersedes her 1978 effort in more ways than one. As the author admits, "The prospect of illustrating a long-revered classic is intimidating--all the more daunting because it has been celebrated by such a wide spectrum of accomplished artists. I wanted mystery and wonder-- a fresh perspective to the tale. Here's a child who gets to see the unseeable!"

And readers get to see it through the eyes of that small child (and Dad, the designated necessary narrator) in a beautifully conceived and executed version of Clement Moore's poem, one altogether in a league with all those "accomplished artists" who have gone before. Hobbie's setting is a more modest, Norman-Rockwellian one than most: no elaborately decorated Victorian mansion like Jan Brett's, no folkloric colonial house like Tomie de Paola's, no stately early nineteenth-century burgher's home such as Dan Santore's. Hobbie creates a comfortable house somewhere between all the others, one furnished solidly with a retro-styled sleigh bed for parents who don't need a kerchief or cap against the cold, a home decorated with a few hand-knit, homemade adornments and a touch of hand-me-down antique furnishings here and there. The toddler himself is at the center of this retelling, his body language, his surprise and wordless wonder telling the tale visually and well.

Hobbie's watercolor, ink, and gouache artwork in full-page, double-page, or spot vignettes paces the story perfectly, done with tasteful palette and keeping the inevitably adorable qualities of the little eyewitness a bit understated. A treat for the eyes and the heart, helping Clement Moore's magical story come alive once more in an admirable new edition.

Can't Beat Santa! Dinosaur Vs. Santa by Bob Shea



ROAR! I’M A DINOSAUR!

I AM GETTING READY FOR SANTA.

DINOSAUR VS. ... LETTER TO SANTA!

Bob Shea’s endearing little red dinosaur is back, ready to take on the challenges of the holiday season with a merry ROAR!

With a scribble and and self-congratulatory ROAR, he finishes his missive and slams it into the mailbox. Now on to other jolly Yuletide jobs.

But first, a littler dino has to be properly turned out for the tasks ahead, so he slips on his festive red and green snowman sweater. Dinosaur vs. tree trimming? Colored balls? Twinkly lights? No problem. With a cheery roar, he finishes up the fir – at least as far as he can reach, which is only the bottom boughs.

Then he’s off to the next task–presents for Mom and Dad. With a few popsicle sticks and paints he whips up a picture frame for his loving self-portrait. ROAR! Gingerbread man cookies for Santa? Dinosaur decorates them with glee! Double ROAR! Being good until Christmas. Um, ROAR???

Christmas is under control!

Except for the hardest task of all, getting Dinosaur to sleep on Christmas Eve!

TOSS! TURN!

NOW DINOSAUR WILL DO SOMETHING NO DINOSAUR SHOULD EVER DO!

You guessed it. Dinosaur gives in to temptation and sneaks a peak at what no youngster is ever supposed to see–what is making that distinctive jingle jingle down in the living room. Does Santa know? Will he retrieve all the toys and take them back for some other youngster who stays in bed on Christmas Eve?

It’s the old story of spying on Santa, in Bob Shea’s newest, Dinosaur vs. Santa (Hyperion, 2012) in which this adorable dino tot takes on Santa and the rest of the holiday stuff. Will there be a happy ROAR or two at Dinosaur’s house on Christmas morning?

Earlier books in Shea’s series are Dinosaur vs. Bedtime, Dinosaur vs. the Library, and his ever-popular magnum opus, Dinosaur vs. the Potty (Board Book). A winning combination for stuffing any stocking!