SILENT NIGHT
by Sandy Turner & illustrated by Sandy Turner
A witty, wordless (in a sense) Christmas Eve tale from a New Yorker artist, featuring an indefatigably yippy small dog who goes positively ballistic when Santa drops down the chimney. To the dog’s intense frustration, however, Santa is invisible to all the sleepy folk roused by the commotion. The simply drawn figures are set within cartoon boxes, with only pale tan fill and red highlights for color, but literally hundreds of hand-lettered “woofs” and “grrrs” for decoration—not so much text as motif, impossible to actually read. Turner serves up a surprise at the end: not only does the palette change to Christmas colors, but before being sent packing by a cat’s “Sssshhhhh!,” the pup scores a patch from the seat of Santa’s pants—and an actual patch of red felt is glued to the final page. Grownups will chuckle; children would probably like this more as an animated film. (Picture book. 7-9)