Santa Baby? A Mustache Baby Christmas by Bridget Heos

Christmas is just around the corner, and Santa's recruiting extra elves.

You know that Baby Billy was born with a mustache. And that Baby Javier was born with a beard. But did you know that on Christmas Eve, Javier's beard...

turned white?

That made him Santa's #1 helper--SANTA BABY!

Santa Baby gets busy collecting all the tiny tots' wish lists for Christmas Eve, noting that not all little ones are nice and some are definitely headed for the NAUGHTY list. He also gallantly volunteers to taste all the tasty treats.

Javier is one busy bearded boy. But soon there's a production problem:

Santa Baby hadn't had time to make the toys!

Just then Baby Billy came 'stacche-ing through the snow. In a twinkling he offers to be an elf in Santa Baby's workshop.

The two hirsute Santa's helpers soon construct a trove of gifts for their client tots. But then Mustache Baby suffers a bad case of selfishness! He claims the toys for himself! As he corrals all the toys, something strange happens. His mustache goes into hyper-drive and turns into...

A BAD GUY MUSTACHE!

But when Santa Baby gets angry, he grows a bodacious beard, hitches up his dachshund team to the sleigh and leaves his renegade elf behind in a snow drift. Naughty bad guy Billy kayos the lead dachshund with a chunky snowball and brings down Santa Baby's sleigh, and Santa Baby is forced to steer his sleigh to a crash landing.

Will Christmas Eve be a bearded bust? Will Santa's sleigh be grounded and Santa Baby forced to forego his worldwide Yuletide trip?

Never fear, all ye tots, toddlers, and expectant kids. Yearly, newly, faithfully truly, somehow Santa Claus always comes, as in Bridget Heos' jolly new Yuletide treat, A Mustache Baby Christmas (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Clarion, 2019).

Okay, it's still some time until Santa's big night, but it's never too soon to stock up on stocking-stuffer stories filled with holiday cheer, and together author Bridget Heos and her trusty helper, artist Joy Ang, have a certain top-seller for that coming Season to Be Jolly. There's always a place for some silly Santa's helper stories to brighten winter solstice time, and worried kids will cheer and be cheered when Santa Grownup flies in just in time to take care of Christmas Eve duties right on schedule. Artist Joy Ang's cheery illustrations make sure all is merry and bright, and all's well that ends well with a merry message from Santa Grownup and Santa Baby...

MERRY MUSTACHE TO ALL... AND TO ALL A BEARD WHITE!

Bridget Heos' and Joy Ang's other books in this joyfully silly series are Mustache Baby (board book), Mustache Baby Meets His Match, and her recent buccaneer baby tale, Arrr, Mustache Baby!

Two Hirsute Hombres: Mustache Baby Meets His Match by Bridget Heos

BABY BILLY WAS BORN WITH A MUSTACHE.

USUALLY IT WAS A GOOD-GUY MUSTACHE, BUT OCCASIONALLY IT CURLED UP AT THE ENDS INTO A--WELL, YOU KNOW.

THEN ONE DAY, BABY JAVIER CAME TO TOWN.

Yep. There's a new hairy hombre in town, the Beard Kid, and when he rides up into Billy's corral on his three-wheeled cayuse, Mustache Baby knows that means there's bound to be a facial-haired shootout on Main Street, otherwise known as El Rancho de Billy.

The two hairy hombres have a face down, glaring into each other's eyes and taking each other's mettle. Mustache Baby resolves to teach Javier that there's not room for both of them in this town, or at least not in his backyard.

BUT THIS WASN'T JAVIER'S FIRST RODEO.

Hirsute Javier's beard gets spiky as he shows Billy how he can wrestle bears and chop down trees in jig time. Billy's mustache curls aggressively as he undertakes to prove that at best Javier is no better than sidekick material. It all comes down to a showdown in the wrestling ring, Barba Nino (a.k.a. Beard Baby) vs. the local hero, Mustache Baby.

Bridget Heos' second book about her mustachio-ed toddler, Mustache Baby Meets His MatchHoughton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015), offers a humorous run-through of all the Old West cliches as the two follicularly precocious tots work out their rivalry to become Wild West pardners. Artist Joy Ang's comic digital illustrations extend the text, providing visual storytelling for kids too young to recognize the old Western movie tropes that will give their parents a chuckle. Youngsters will crave more of these two hairy-faced hombres as Billy the (Mustached) Kid and Barba Nino resolve to ride the range together.

This one begs to be read in tandem with its popular predecessor, Mustache Baby (see my September, 2013 review here).

Hirsute Heir? Mustache Baby by Bridget Heos

When  Billy is born, he parents get quite a surprise.

Baby Billy has an impressive mustache.

His parents are puzzled at what all this means.

"IT DEPENDS," THE NURSE SAYS.

"YOU'LL HAVE TO WAIT AND SEE WHETHER IT'S A GOOD-GUY MUSTACHE OR A BAD-GUY MUSTACHE."

At first, as Billy and his mustache grow to toddlerhood, it looks like a good-guy mustache--a lawman's crisp little cookie duster, suitable for a sheriff who rounds up the bad guys!

But soon that mustache begins to sprout and grow and curl into a maleficent-looking mustachio--a bad-guy mustache for sure.  It's a disrespectful  desperado's soup-strainer of a mustache, and Billy's behavior goes down the tubes, too. He's a cat burglar (burgling the family kitty), a cereal-stealing felon who even robs toy trains and purloins a Tootsie getaway car, and finally Mom has to collar this malefactor and stick him in behind bars (in his crib).

But time in the slammer seems to do the trick, and Mom bails him out, explaining to Billy's appropriately annoyed big sister and brother...

"EVERYONE HAS A BAD-MUSTACHE DAY NOW AND THEN!"

And there's an unsuspected hairy resolution to this super-silly hirsute tale, in Bridget Heos' Mustache Baby (Houghton Mifflin Clarion, 2013), illustrated with super silliness by Joy Ang in delightful mixed media layouts. Ang's art extends the story ably, especially in depicting the unmentioned reactions of the hospital staff  and neighbors to Billy's lip fringe, and his harassed older siblings' reactions to Billy's terrible two capers.

Kirkus calls this one as a "...mix of Saturday-morning slapstick, dramatic comic-book angles and mustachioed babies. Occasional badness has never been so good."