CHRISTMAS EVE MAGIC

Barton is an unhappy porcine version of Scrooge in this story that parallels the plot of A Christmas Carol, but on a simpler level and with an all-animal cast. As the story opens on Christmas Eve, five homeless orphans (including a one-legged dog named Lulu in the Tiny Tim role) are staring hungrily into the tempting window of a bakery. They still retain the Christmas spirit, but Barton the pig is shut up in his lonely mansion with his servants, hating Christmas and wishing it were over. A wise mouse appears to help Barton, who himself shrinks to mouse-size as the clock strikes midnight. Barton sees Christmas past, present and future, and his transformation is as complete and sudden as Scrooge’s. He invites the orphan animals home for a festive dinner and declares them his “friends forever.” Poulin’s paintings have a dark, surrealistic quality suggesting the physical and spiritual poverty that endanger the characters, but even the illustrations after Barton’s epiphany fail to convey much warmth. This simplified interpretation of the Dickensian tale may help children understand the plot structure before seeing a performance of the play, but otherwise there’s little magic here. (Fiction. 6-10)