TWO SANTA-BASED CHRISTMAS STORIES
A missing black boot and kidnapped elf child are all part of the season’s tales
Jerry Pinkney, winner of the 2010 Caldecott Medal for The Lion & the Mouse, a wordless adaptation of Aesop’s fable, told an audience at Keene State College in New Hampshire recently that while he has more than 100 books to his credit, he had “never done a Christmas story with a Santa before.”
Enter The Christmas Boot, by Lisa Wheeler (Dial Books, 32 pages, $23.99), the story of a lonely old woman who lives deep in the forest and whose life changes when she finds a big black boot in the snow.
Magically, the boot fits itself to her foot and “her warm left foot stepped nimbly as her cold right foot struggled to keep up.”
That night, back in her “ramshackle cabin,” Hannah wishes she had its mate; the next morning she wakes to find it next to her bed.
Chatting away to herself happily all day as she does her chores, Hannah wishes she had mittens to keep her hands as warm as her feet. And sure enough, she wakes next morning to bright red mittens tucked inside the boots.
When Hannah wonders if the boot might also deliver a fine meal and a grand house, I figured this was turning into a retelling of the Fisherman and his Wife, a Grimm fairy tale about a greedy woman whose wishes grew more and more outrageous.
But no, even Hannah recognizes that the grand house awaiting her when she returns from her chores isn’t a good fit for her.
And when a bearded man in a red suit, wearing one boot, appears at her door, looking for his missing footwear, the story takes an abrupt turn.
In the end, Hannah is left with some boots of her own — and Pinkney gives us a closing spread in which he more than makes up for any previous lack of Santas in his books. For ages three to seven. A Boy Called Christmas, by Matt Haig (HarperCollins, 265 pages, $16.50), is aimed at a slightly older audience — specifically, kids in the middle grades — although it will also work well as a read-aloud story for ages 6 and older.
True, there are a few edgy elements to this story about young Nikolas, an ordinary boy whose mother dies by falling down while saving her son from a wild bear, and whose father, Joel, sets out with some dodgy friends to travel north in search of elves and riches, leaving his son in the care of a nasty aunt.
In the end, Nikolas is far from ordinary; he befriends Blitzen, a flying reindeer, and eventually finds a home among the elves who, at one point, had imprisoned him after his father and the rest of that gang kidnapped Little Kip, an elf child.
All’s well that ends well, though.
Even Joel has a change of heart, sacrificing his own life to ensure Nikolas and Blitzen make a clean getaway with the sleigh and the caged elf child, who is returned to his parents.
British author Matt Haig ends up explaining the origins of Father Christmas, a.k.a. Santa Claus, as well as holiday customs such as Christmas stockings and Christmas crackers (invented by the Truth Pixie as a more socially acceptable way to indulge her passion for exploding heads).
Kids will love the tonguein-cheek humour, including Blitzen’s fondness for “weeing” on people from great heights. And the many black-and-white illustrations by Chris Mould will encourage even reluctant readers to stay with the story.