We’re all familiar with the classic poem “T’was the Night Before Christmas.” This cute children’s picture book takes the rhyme and gives it a new twist.
On the left side of the book, we are treated to the original rendition. On the right, we see that someone isn’t asleep yet, and he’s adding his own verses as well. He’s trying to go to sleep, he really is – but we all know how hard it is to fall asleep on Christmas Eve, when we’re all so excited about everything that’s going to happen the next day. He tries commanding himself to sleep, but that doesn’t work, and neither does pretending to be dead.
He hears the sleigh on the roof and he knows he’s done for. He’ll never get any gifts now – especially since he just peeked outside. Peeking is definitely not allowed – it’s even worse than just simply being awake.
But while Santa is downstairs doing the whole bowl full of jelly thing, the boy notices that the sleigh is starting to slide off the roof. He climbs out his window and into the sleigh, trying to figure out how to keep it from taking a header. He finally remembers to yell “Dash away!” and the reindeer move just enough to resettle the sleigh. He gets off the roof as fast as he can, just in time, in fact. Santa never knew just how close he came to losing his entire mode of transportation.
I really like this Christmas book – the illustrations, also done by the author, are well done. Plus, it’s packaged beautifully – the flyleaves are even gold metallic and the copyright information is presented in the shape of a tree. Those little details really add to the overall effect.
(This book was published in 2006 by Simon and Schuster.)
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Merry Christmas, Curious George!