wrapping up some book love

Time for another installment of 5 Minutes for Books' Children's Classics! This month, we're thinking about holiday books we love to share with our kids. Once again, here I am struggling with the 'classics' label of this carnival, because I'm not sure that some of the holiday books that I love officially count as classics just yet. Bear Stays Up for Christmas and Olive the Other Reindeer both come to mind as ones that I personally adore reading year after year, but they're both relatively recent releases. We actually do have an official classic that has sat on our bookshelf for years that I have never even read aloud once- the version of A Charlie Brown Christmas that was available from Kohl's a while ago. Perhaps this will be the year that one makes its debut in our home.

So, without a clear leader out in front for this month's carnival, my idea for this post is a little bit different. Well, I guess it's a couple of ideas. First of all, I've been wanting to copy my friend Corinne's idea about the 12 Days of Christmas Books for a while now, and this year I might actually have my stuff together enough to do it! Lovely hubby grabbed a bunch of books from the library already, so it may be pretty challenging to put it down to just 12 books. From a cursory look at the pile, I'm fairly certain that Four Friends at Christmas and Maisy's Snowy Christmas Eve will be big hits with the younger kids. I really am looking forward to just surrounding myself with all the holiday books we have in our personal and borrowed collections and awarding the twelve ribbons (and wrapping paper!) to this year's winners!

And now for the third part of this post, a part that is in fact the exact opposite of the point of the Children's Classics feature. Rather than sharing another wonderful, you've-just-got-to-read-this-book-to-your-kids title, I'm going to finish up here by warning you to steer clear of what has to be the worst holiday title for kids ever published.

Grandpa's Witched-Up Christmas by James Flora is seriously an awful book. I get that it was published in 1982, but um... that means that I was the target audience for this when it actually came out, and I can tell you wholeheartedly that this book would have made me cry. Sure, witches who want to eat children have appeared in previous tales, and maybe even transformation of kids out of human form isn't completely unfamiliar to older kids' books. But I'm pretty sure that the following excerpt will complete my argument for keeping this book out of your holiday basket this year. The setup is that the witch is about to boil the kids-turned-pig-and-owl on Christmas Eve when someone much-loved intervenes on their behalf:

"With one hand he grabbed the witch by the neck and shook her. With the other hand he plucked me from the pot. Just in time, too. I was beginning to turn red.

'And now, you foul fiend,' Santa cried, 'practice your magic art and return these children to their former bodies.'

'I won't, I won't,' choked the witch.

'You will. Else I'll squeeze some Christmas spirit into you.'

Santa squeezed harder and harder on her skinny neck. Peggoty's face turned red, then blue, then green. Her tongue popped out. She gasped, 'I have it. I have the Christmas spirit.'

'I knew it would come to you. It comes to all of us at some time or other,' Santa said."

Yes, dear readers. That is the exact Christmas spirit that we're all hoping for, right? I'm going to choke you to death until you're ready to praise the season. Goodness gracious, is this a kids' book or a late-night cable drama?

If you're in the holiday and book-loving spirit, please link up with 5 Minutes for Books for this month's Children's Classics. (And you know you wanna check your local library's shelves for this doozy, right??)


Preparing the holiday book baskets way too early,



**How am I doing on my gratitude challenge?? Come check up on me here since I'll be adding new entries each day!**