An intriguing addition to any collection of seek-and-find children’s books.
Grandad is at a loss to find his Christmas ornaments before his grandkids arrive.
The two children are coming to help him decorate. The three of them—anthropomorphic dogs with faces reminiscent of the Poky Little Puppy’s—search through the clutter for the missing ornaments. (Grandad is a bit of a hoarder.) Young readers are invited to help search the busy pages for the lost ornaments. The missing decorations are all pictured at the front of the book to help with the search. Bright colors and densely packed pages mask more than Christmas decorations, though, and children will find much to empathize with. Grandad’s messy, ramshackle house, with its cracked windows, patched-together banisters, and holes in the ceilings, is overflowing with stuff. Grandad’s wistful expression hints that what may be lost is Christmases from happier times. Indeed, the ornaments are all of an old-fashioned style, and the objects that fill the house are primarily toys, yet Grandad seems to live alone. The rather peculiar color scheme ranges from muted, monochromatic endpapers to an almost garishly fluorescent interior. The engaging text runs along the bottoms of the pages, and an invitation to find one more ornament is on the copyright page at the end of the book.
An intriguing addition to any collection of seek-and-find children’s books. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-451-47904-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
A forgettable effort that fails to capture any of the magical charm of Santa’s story. (Picture book. 3-6)
Wallace and Elkerton continue their series about catching elusive mythical creatures (How to Catch a Leprechaun, 2016, etc.) with this Christmas story about an elf who must avoid traps constructed by children before Santa’s annual visit.
The unnamed elf narrator is the sole helper traveling with Santa on his delivery rounds on Christmas Eve, with each house featuring a different type of trap for elves. The spunky elf avoids a mechanical “elf snatcher,” hidden in a plate of cookies, as well as simple traps made of tinsel, double-sided tape, and a cardboard box concealing a mean-looking cat. Another trap looks like a bomb hidden in a box of candy, and a complicated trap in a maze has an evil cowboy clown with a branding iron, leading to the elf’s cry, “Hey, you zapped my tushy!” The bomb trap and the branding iron seem to push the envelope of child-made inventions. The final trap is located in a family grocery store that’s booby-trapped with a “Dinner Cannon” shooting out food, including a final pizza that the elf and Santa share. The singsong, rhyming text has a forced cheeriness, full of golly-jolly-holly Christmas spirit and too many exclamation marks, as well as rhyming word pairs that miss the mark. (No, little elf-boy, “smarter” and “harder” do not rhyme.) Bold, busy illustrations in a cartoon style have a cheeky appeal with a focus on the freckle-faced white elf with auburn curls and a costume with a retro vibe. (Santa is also white.)
A forgettable effort that fails to capture any of the magical charm of Santa’s story. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4926-4631-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Cookie-cutter predictability.
After all the daring escapes in the How To Catch… series, will the kids be able to catch Santa?
Oddly, previous installments saw the children trying (and failing) to catch an elf and a reindeer, but both are easily captured in this story. Santa, however, is slippery. Tempted but not fooled by poinsettias, a good book (attached to a slingshot armed with a teddy bear projectile), and, of course, milk and cookies, Santa foils every plan. The hero in a red suit has a job to do. Presents must be placed, and lists must be checked. He has no time for traps and foolery (except if you’re the elf, who falls for every one of them). Luckily, Santa helps the little rascal escape each time. Little is new here—the kids resort to similar snares found in previous works: netting, lures, and technological wonders such as the Santa Catcher 5000. Although the rhythm falters quite a bit (“How did we get out you ask? / It looked like we were done for. / Santa’s magic is very real, / and I cannot reveal more”), fans of the series may not mind. Santa and Christmas just might be enough to overcome the flaws. Santa and the elf are light-skinned, one of the children is brown-skinned, and the other presents as Asian. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Cookie-cutter predictability. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781728274270
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2023
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BOOK REVIEW
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