Book Buds Kidlit Reviews

The Shlockiest Time of the Year

Are You Grumpy, Santa?
by Gregg and Evan Spiridellis

Reviewed by Deb Clark

The 1978 made-for-TV Star Wars Holiday Special with guest appearances by Art Carney and Bea Arthur. A CD of traditional Christmas songs by '80s hair band Twisted Sister released this year. Movies like Santa Claus Conquers the Martians or Christmas with the Kranks.

Happy birthday, Jesus. Hope you like schlock. Christianity’s holiest day of the year is a major inspiration for commercial fluff.

Add to the list Are You Grumpy, Santa? by the Spiridellis brothers, founders of JibJab Media. The pair are best known for their wildly popular 2004 animated spoof featuring caricatures of presidential candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry singing a parody of This Land Is Your Land.

This Christmas book was published in 2003, with a release in paperback this year. The story, in sometimes stilted rhyming verse, tells of a series of setbacks Santa faced one Christmas. He didn’t sleep well, he got stuck in a chimney, he was chased by a poodle, and on and on. But his bad mood suddenly lifts when, at the very last house on his list, he discovers the plate of cookies someone left him.

So remember, make them chocolate,
Silky smooth, or extra lumpy…
Just be sure to leave some cookies,
In case Santa’s feeling grumpy.

Yeah, it’s not Dickens. But my kids love it. They enjoy the cartoonishly simple computer-generated illustrations. They laugh at Santa’s travails. They ponder over just who might have set out that plate of cookies. Must have been a kid, they deduce. A grown-up would never be so kind and thoughtful.

Just more proof that the value of an artistic endeavor is not universally dependent on its possession of redeeming qualities. Sometimes it’s a lack of quality that makes it fun. Which is why I’d love to get my hands on a copy of that Star Wars special.

Rating: *\

And one big "amen"

Count My Blessings: 1 through 10

by Salina Yoon

One of the zillion cool things about blogging is getting acquainted with some of the authors, who otherwise wouldn't know me if I stole their pens at a book signing.

I've had a warm correspondence with Salina Yoon, who creates novelty books -- unusual and eye-catching board books, often with lots shimmer and glitter for happy little hands. Both her Easter and Hanukkah books earned high marks on this site.

She's now aimed her colorful magic to everyday blessings in a counting book. A teddy bear says his nightly prayers for his family and favorite toys: one house, two parents, three friends, etc.:

Bless my friends both old and new.
Bless my pets, so dear to me too.

The pictures are awash in vivid primary colors, with lots of fun purples especially, but I miss all the shiny stuff. That's okay, it's simple and sweet and makes something abstract -- praying to an invisible deity -- concrete by counting things that are real to the child.

Rating: *\*\*\

A little Latina magic

Dona Flor

by Pat Mora; illustrated by Raul Colon

A Gift of Gracias

by Julia Alvarez; illustrated by Beatriz Vidal

Perhaps it's odd or inappropriate to pair a magical realism story with a religious one, since many will insist that there's no suspense of disbelief in the latter, at least for the religiously inclined. That'd be missing what the stories have in common, which is more than the occasional Spanish phrase and Hispanic backdrop (and the fact that they arrived in the same box. Ah well).

One's a tall tale from what could be either the American Southwest or northern Mexico, the other's the Dominican legend of Our Lady of Altagracia (literally "High Grace").

Mora creates a larger-than-life heroine in the giantess Dona Flor, giving her oversized common sense as well as a heart as big as the hand-made tortillas that double as roofs for a grateful pueblo. When a puma's thunderous roars make both people and animals tremble, she righteously marches off to settle matters. How refreshing to see a protagonist who doesn't face every affront with a massive shot of testosterone, but with folksy wisdom and a wry smile.

Little Maria in The Gift of Gracias prays that her family won't have to leave colonial Hispaniola (today's Dominican Republic) after their olive crop fails. She's rewarded with a dream of planting oranges, accompanied by a vision of the Virgin. When her family plants orange seeds, the trees mature quickly and bear a life-saving harvest.

An aboriginal servant, Quisqueya, acts as a sort of Catholic spirit guide, appearing in Maria's dreams and later bringing home a blanket with the Virgin's likeness that's hung in the new orchard. Alvarez blurs the distinction between the folkloric and the sacred, with a Virgin firmly rooted in Dominican soil and native culture.

It makes the story decidedly Latino, just as Dona Flor, who may have girth akin to Paul Bunyan's, but whose story is only American in the largest possible sense -- an America that spans two continents and whose people are as likely to speak Spanish as not.

Both books channel Diego Rivera in their homage to peasants, though maybe that's not the right word. I think of Latino folk art when I see the rounded figures and earthy colors and the artists' celebration of the simple and everyday. Plus there's the usual clues: the flattened picture plane, the minimal use of light and shadow, the uncluttered compositions, and how the artists freely mix the mundane and the supernatural as if it were an expected thing. 

The act of planting orange seeds takes on a religious solemnity, for example, with figures praying as they stoop at their work. Vidal used a magnifying glass on the many details, but her pictures remain clear, straightforward depictions of a modest family's brush with divine grace.

Colon's Dona Flor soars, ethereal and sweet, the lines smudged and smoothed to make her literally soft around the edges, a depiction that is more awed than religious, but uplifting in its own way. 

Rating: *\*\*\

The gift between parent and child

You Are My Miracle

by Maryan Cusimano Love; illustrated by Satomi Ichikawa

Okay, it's two days before Christmas and I'm reduced to sentimental goo. I'd give the phone book a three-bud rating today. I almost can't wait until January when the cold weather will snap me back to my senses.

But then I'd have to put away all the books such as this one, which gave me such jollies.

This is the sort of book you want to read while your tot's curled in your lap, because the hugging instinct will kick in with the opening stanza:

I am your parent;
you are my child
I am your quiet place;
you are my wild.

The analogies progress along these lines throughout various holiday preparations, such as cocoa and marshmallow, Santa Claus and Christmas elf, etc., and ending with the "miracle" line from the title. It wouldn't be fair to print all the verses here, but you get the idea.

The watercolor illustrations inspire the warm fuzzies with the playful teddy bears. I mean, really, like I'm going to criticize anything right now?

Rating: *\*\

Chicken soup for the canine soul

Three French Hens

by Margie Palatini; illustrated by Richard Egielski

Colette, Poulette and Fifi are supposed to be on their way to a certain mademoiselle's true love in Paris, but somehow wind up in New York. Mon dieu!

These hens, decked out in heels and chapeaus, search for their mistress' beloved Philippe Renard. They settle for the friendless Phil Fox in his decrepit tenement, who's amazed when three free dinners strut into his humble home.

Hilarity ensues. Okay, just had to say that. But that's pretty much what happens as they take over his life and give him and his abode an extreme makeover to, um, not die for.

You know Phil's not going to eat them -- this is a Christmas story, after all. And it had me smiling all the way up until they refused gifts from him. Ugh, I thought, here comes some corny message about giving, right? Wrong! The birds celebrate Hanukkah -- they're kosher! Hahahaha!

Ohmigawd, I'm still laughing. Sorry for the spoiler. This one's funny.

Rating: *\*\*\

A feathery friend

Christmas Eve Blizzard

by Andrea Vlahakis; illustrated by Emanuel Schongut

My mother loved birds, and winter was her favorite season for bird-watching because they landed right on our deck and peeped at us. She wasn’t much on crafts, but she’d make bird feeders by cutting holes in empty milk cartons and tying them to the deck posts. The Cardinals were everyone’s favorite: they were easy to spot, their vivid crimson making them brighter than blue jays, if not as noisy.

The birds have another fan in a boy named Nicholas in this story. He watches anxiously from a window as a sick Cardinal falls off a branch of an apple sapling during a blizzard on Christmas Eve. He braves the elements to rescue the bird, which he and his grandfather nurse back to health. The critter even takes priority over opening Christmas presents. Nicholas’ charity is one day rewarded with a small miracle every Christmas: the apple tree appears to burst with red fruit as Cardinals flock to its branches.

Although not a bilingual book, the boy and his grandfather are Hispanic and the language peppered with Spanish phrases, which are translated for easy reading. Like most books from Sylvan Dell Publishing, there’s also a host of intriguing and easy activities in back, such as making bird feeders from pine cones and peanut butter. I bet Mom would be impressed.

Rating: *\*\

Sprucing up an urban celebration

A City Christmas Tree

by Rebecca Bond

When I lived in New York, my Jewish roommate and I succumbed one year to Christmas Envy and bought a tree. The roommate lugged home a nine-foot tree for our eight-foot ceiling.

“I love the smell of pine,” she said. We both did a lot of deep breathing, though I think hers was owing to the five flights of stairs she’d just climbed.

We decorated it with strands of cranberries and some tinsel, and since nothing fit at the top, we didn’t have to worry about buying an angel. We infidels didn’t know bupkis about Christmas trees, and neglected to put water in the stand. I was still vacuuming up pine needles in July.

Perhaps city Christmas trees – unlike their suburban and rural cousins – take on an extra allure for urban dwellers. Their deep green needles and transcendent aroma suggest forests and rustic simplicity and Yuletide peace that’s otherwise hard to capture amidst the metropolitan bustle. Fortunately, those trees are in more knowing hands than mine with Ms. Bond.

Maggie Laroche is the first to discover the rows of bundled evergreens leaning against a building on her block. She takes an enormous lungful of fresh, pine-scented air and it sets her imagination soaring.

Every day, she brings another member of her interracial family to see them; each one is inspired by a different sight or smell or memory, until at last her parents bring one home.

You’d never know the sun sets early this time of year, as Bond’s acrylics glow with sunlight and bright snow, reflecting off children’s faces as if illuminating all the secret places inside us where we dream.

Rating: *\*\*\

A star is born in Bethlehem

What Star Is This?

by Joseph Slate; illustrated by Alison Jay

Somewhere in the furthest reaches of our solar system, a comet is born and makes its way to Earth, becoming the Bethlehem star and then the halo over the infant Jesus.

Slate chooses simple rhymes for this cosmic twist to the divine story, making the comet a childlike character for real kids to enjoy. Jay's panels of flat blue, and the simple, almost-stick-like figures and flattened perspective remind me of early American folk art, right down to the subtly crackled surface.

Rating: *\*\

All Tuckered out

Ho, ho, ho, Tucker!

by Leslie McGuirk

The latest in a series of Tucker books for young children, this tome features the mischievous dog infatuated with all that is Christmas. He dreams of doggie presents, he frolics among the decorations and burns his nose on freshly-baked cookies. Later Christmas Eve, his bright red nose catches the attention of a certain jolly old elf, who whisks him off for more adventures.

This book has bright illustrations but beyond that I found it unexciting and predictable. It's written for a very young audience, though, and that simpleness in art and writing seems to appeal to the very young. A nice book, but just that. There are more inspiring holiday books out there.

Note: reviewed by Dawn Mena

Rating: *\

Weather forecast: slight chance of miracles

Jerusalem Sky

by Mark Podwal

I should stop reading press releases. They, well, de-press me. This one was chock full of blurbs by such literary heavyweights as Nobel laureate Eli Wiesel (“will bring the city closer to you”), Cynthia Ozick (“the very hues of Paradise”), even Maurice Sendak (“fierce bite, healthy spirit and sheer joyousness”).

You’d think Solomon, Jesus and Mohammed all co-wrote it.

So who am I to criticize Podwal, whose paintings hang in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and who’s a medical doctor in his “spare” time? Not to mention all the fancy fellowships and awards he’s received. I take it Podwal couldn’t write a bad book if someone mugged him and stole all his ideas (hey, let ‘em blurb that).

He brings his literary and artistic heft to bear on the City of Peace (cough) by citing legends, no, er, myths … wait, wait … uh, beliefs about the beautiful sky over Jerusalem from all three monotheistic faiths. Stuff like:

Legend says that the Jerusalem sky
has a hole in it
made by a jewel
that fell from God's throne.
Through this hole
hopes reach heaven.

The book doesn’t name names: no Temple Mount, Church of the Holy Sepulchre or Dome of the Rock, nor is there room for a discordant note in this lyrical poem.

We get to pretend all three faiths can actually coexist in pastel-hued, light-infused impressionistic harmony, at least for 30 pages. Dang, I’ll never get blurbed at this rate. Okay, here goes: Moving tribute! Transcendent art! Message of hope, etc! Nice if you’re into this sort of thing!

Rating: *\*\