Posted on by TracyC

The Night Before Christmas

The Night Before Christmas by Clement C. Moore, illustrated by Corinne Malvern, 1949.

This version of The Night Before Christmas is part of the classic Little Golden Books series. The original poem, A Visit From St. Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore, has been made into picture books for children many times since it was first published in 1823, but this version has some sentimental value to me. I think it was the first version that I ever read as a child. I had forgotten which version it was for years, but when I found this book again recently, I recognized the pictures. (It’s funny, but I remember thinking as a child that the youngest child looks a little too big to be in a cradle, but she is in the picture when the children are being put to bed.) Most people think of the poem as being called The Night Before Christmas instead of its original title, A Visit From St. Nicholas, because the phrase “the night before Christmas” appears in the first line of the poem. Many of the picture book versions that we read as children used The Night Before Christmas or ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas as a title.

This Little Golden Book makes a cozy and pleasant bedtime story for Christmas Eve with its images of a 19th century/Victorian family hanging up their stockings and going to bed on Christmas Eve with the anticipation of the sweets, presents, and fun of the next day. Then, the father of the family is suddenly woken when he hears Santa Claus arriving.

This 19th century poem established and popularized the image of Santa Claus as generations of Americans came to know it. It describes him as a fat and jolly little old man and names all of the reindeer who pull his sleigh. This is probably the first piece of writing that established that Santa has eight reindeer and gave them specific names, which would later be echoed in the storybook and song versions of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

The father of the family in the poem happily watches Santa Claus leaving presents for his children and then leaving by the chimney and riding off in his sleigh with a cheery, “Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!”

Various picture book versions of this poem are available online through Internet Archive, including this Little Golden Book version.

Posted on by TracyC

Winnie-the-Pooh and the Pebble Hunt

Winnie-the-Pooh and the Pebble Hunt by Walt Disney Productions, 1982.

This is a First Little Golden Book.

Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet are trying to think of something to do. Piglet suggests a heffalump hunt, but Winnie-the-Pooh says that he would rather go on a pebble hunt because it’s easier to find pebbles.

They get a sock to keep their pebbles in, and they start collecting pebbles. However, they don’t notice right away that there is a hole in the toe of the sock, and the pebbles they collect fall out as they go.

They discover the hole when they stop to count how many pebbles they’ve found, and they realize that there’s only one pebble left in the sock. Also, they suddenly realize that they’re lost.

Fortunately, Winnie-the-Pooh realizes that they can follow the trail of pebbles they’ve lost to find their way back home. They tie a hole in the sock to stop the pebbles they’ve collected from falling out again, and they follow their pebble trail, picking up the pebbles again on their way home.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

This is a cute and fun story where Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet discover that their mistake in losing the pebbles they’ve been collecting is actually a stroke of good luck because their trail of dropped pebbles helps them find their way home when they’re lost. This little picture book was a favorite of mine and my brother’s when we were little, and my family still likes to jokingly quote Piglet when he realizes that there’s only one pebble left, and Pooh asks him to count again, slowly, just to be sure: “One pebble. I counted very slowly.”

Posted on by TracyC

Barbie and the Missing Wedding Dress

The Missing Wedding Dress Featuring Barbie by Karen Krugman, illustrated by Laura Westlake, 1986.

This Little Golden Book is a cute mystery with Barbie and her younger sister Skipper.

Barbie’s friends, Tracy and Todd, are getting married, and Barbie and Skipper are helping Tracy to get ready. Barbie is going to be Tracy’s maid of honor, and Skipper will be the flower girl for the wedding.

However, when they’re helping Tracy to get dressed for the wedding, Barbie’s cat gets loose and Skipper accidentally tears Tracy’s dress trying to catch the cat. The three of them take the dress to the dressmaker to be fixed.

After the dress is repaired, they stop at the shoe store to pick up Barbie’s shoes. However, when they leave the store, they suddenly realize that they no longer have the box with the dress in it. Instead, they have a box that contains several pairs of jogging shoes! Somehow, the boxes were switched, but how are they going to find the person with the right box?

Barbie, Skipper, and Tracy track the person with the dress across town, using the clues that the jogging shoes belonged to a woman in a floppy straw hat with a red van that says “Flo” on it.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

I read this book when I was a kid and I liked to play with Barbies, and I thought that having them solve a kind of mystery was fun, although it’s a very simple sort of mystery, chasing down a lost object. I liked this book a lot when I was little.

Barbie fans might notice that Skipper doesn’t have her 2000s look, basically looking like a smaller version of Barbie herself, which was how she looked in the 1980s and 1990s, when I got my Barbie dolls. Since then, Mattel has changed Skipper’s hair. However, people who are younger than I am might not be aware that Tracy was also a doll from the 1980s, a friend of Barbie who came in a wedding dress. This 1982 commercial on YouTube shows bride doll Tracy with her groom, Todd. The Tracy and Todd dolls existed before this book was written, so the book was written to give the dolls a story, and the dolls weren’t created based on the book.

Posted on by TracyC

The Poky Little Puppy’s Naughty Day

The Poky Little Puppy’s Naughty Day by Jean Chandler, 1985.

This picture book book is part of the Poky Little Puppy series from Little Golden Books.

The Poky Little Puppy and his siblings are excited because they’re going to visit their grandmother. The Poky Little Puppy wakes up later than his siblings, and when he gets up, he feels playful and frisky. He keeps running around and knocking things over. He makes such a mess that his mother puts him in time out to calm down.

After while, his mother lets him go outside to play with his siblings, but she warns him not to get dirty because they’re going to visit his grandmother. However, the Poky Little Puppy doesn’t listen. Instead, he digs a hole under the fence and ends up in the neighbor’s yard, where he plays with some laundry and drags it through the mud, getting himself and the laundry all dirty.

As his mother and the other puppies start walking to their grandmother’s house, the mother sends the Poky Little Puppy back to apologize to the neighbor. Instead, the Poky Little Puppy gets into more trouble by chasing a butterfly through another neighbor’s flower bed. When he finally makes it to his grandmother’s house, he’s wet and muddy and leaves tracks all over his grandmother’s floor.

His grandmother makes him help her clean up, but even that doesn’t calm him down. Grandmother wants to read a story to the puppies, but the Poky Little Puppy is still too energetic. He knocks over a table and makes another big mess. By the time they get it all cleaned up, there’s no time for a story, and they all have to go home.

Finally, the Poky Little Puppy seems to have exhausted himself and is feeling badly about the trouble he’s caused today. When the puppies have their dinner and dessert, he is extra careful and doesn’t even drop a crumb. He later apologizes to the neighbors and promises to do better.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

This is just a cute little story about the problems that young kids can get into when they’re feeling energetic and playful but are also acting thoughtlessly and going too far. Just being playful by itself isn’t a problem, but the Poky Little Puppy has to learn some self-control about how he plays, just like human children.

Posted on by TracyC

The Poky Little Puppy

The Poky Little Puppy by Janette Sebring Lowrey, illustrated by Gustaf Tenggren, 1942, 1982.

This is a famous class children’s book, the first in a series from the Little Golden Books collection! In fact, it was one of the original first 12 Little Golden Books that were published in 1942.

Five little puppies like to dig holes under the fence and go exploring. Then, four of the puppies realize that one of their brothers isn’t with them. They look around and find him sniffing at the ground. When they ask him what he’s doing, he says that he smells something.

The puppies realize that the smell is rice pudding, and they hurry home to get some. However, their mother is angry about the holes they dug and sends them to bed without dessert.

The puppy who originally smelled the rice pudding is slower than the others (or “poky” as the book describes him, which is why he’s called the Poky Little Puppy). He comes home later than the others, and while everyone is asleep, he eats all the rice pudding himself.

The next day, their mother puts up a sign telling them not to dig holes under the fence, but the puppies ignore it and dig holes anyway so they can go exploring. While they’re out, the Poky Little Puppy hears something.

The other puppies realize that it’s the sound of chocolate custard being dished up, and they hurry home to get some. Again, they’re punished for digging holes, and they’re sent to bed without dessert. And again, the Poky Little Puppy comes home last and eats all the dessert while everyone is in bed.

The next day, the puppies dig holes again, but this time, when they hurry home for dessert and their mother is mad at them, the four puppies who got home quickly fill in the holes they dug. Their mother, seeing that they fixed the holes, decides to let them have their dessert. The Poky Little Puppy, who came home late again, doesn’t get any because the others ate his share, too.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction

This is a very simple story, but I remember liking it as a kid. Kids like stories with repetition, so the repeated incidents in the book appeal to them. The Poky Little Puppy thinks that he’s found a trick to getting all the dessert by staying out late enough that his mother has gone to bed and can’t tell him to go to bed without dessert. But, his trick stops working when the other puppies clean up their act and get the dessert before he even gets there. In the end, all of the puppies learn that digging holes means no dessert for any of them anymore.

Posted on by TracyC

Where Will All the Animals Go?

Where Will All the Animals Go? by Sharon Holaves, illustrated by Leigh Grant, 1978.

This book is one of the Little Golden Book picture books.

A little boy named Matt goes to visit his grandfather on his farm. They notice a storm approaching, and Matt worries about where the animals will go when the storm comes. His grandfather tells him that the animals all know where to go.

The animals also notice the approaching storm. When the rain comes, Matt and his grandfather go inside the house with the cats. After the storm is over, Matt’s grandfather takes him outside to show him where all the animals went during the storm.

Matt watches as all of the animals, both the domesticated animals of the farm and the wild animals who also live there, emerge from their hiding places. Every animal has a place to go, and they’re all fine after the storm.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

I like this story because it’s very calm. I think it could make a good bedtime story for young children. Although the boy in the story is concerned about the animals and where they will go during the storm, the animals are never in any danger. The grandfather knows that the animals will all be fine, and he reassures his grandson that they all have a place to go. It’s reassuring that the storm is natural, the animals know what to do when it happens, and the boy sees that everything is fine. The story ends with the boy and his grandfather watching the sun come out after the storm.

Posted on by TracyC

I Can Fly

I Can Fly by Ruth Krauss, 1950.

This is a cute Little Golden Book about a little girl playing.

As she plays, she compares herself to various animals. When she’s on her swing, she feels like she’s flying like a bird, and when she swims, she feels like a fish.

The story is told in rhyme, and in the back of the book, there is actually music so you can sing the rhyme as a song.

There are different printings of this book, some with different illustrations. The different versions also have different words, and it looks like the newer one includes both a boy and a girl and doesn’t have the music for the song. One of the newer versions is available to borrow for free online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

The Large and Growly Bear

The Large and Growly Bear by Gertrude Crampton, 1961.

One spring day, a large and growly bear is bored.  What else can a large and growly bear do but find someone to scare with his growling?  But, finding someone to scare proves harder than he thought it would be.

As the bear goes through the forest, trying to scare different types of animals, he discovers that they’re all too busy to be frightened of his growling.  The birds are busy feeding their babies, the rabbits are busy jumping around and counting their bounces, and the moles are busy digging tunnels halfway to China. All of them tell the bear to go find someone else to scare.

Eventually, he gets the idea of trying to scare the fish because fish just swim around and aren’t too busy to be scared, but when he gets to the river, he’s in for a big surprise! The easiest target to scare is . . . himself!

My Reaction

This is just a cute story that my brother really liked as a kid. It has repetition that kids like as the bear repeatedly tries to frighten different types of animals with the same disappointing result, and then a funny twist ending when it turns out the only animal who even has the time to be frightened by the bear is himself.  It’s a Little Golden Book.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

The Biggest, Most Beautiful Christmas Tree

BiggestChristmasTree

The Biggest, Most Beautiful Christmas Tree by Amye Rosenberg, 1985.

This is a Little Golden Book.

Every year at Christmas, the Chipmunk children, Nina and Nutley, are disappointed because Santa doesn’t visit their home in a large fir tree in the forest.  They always hang up their stockings and put out cookies, but for some reason, Santa never comes.

BiggestChristmasTreeDisappointment

However, this year, their Aunt Mim has figured out the reason why Santa passes them by and what to do about it.  Aunt Mim has realized that Santa can’t find their tree because it looks like every other tree in the forest.  What they have to do is to decorate their tree so that Santa can find it among all the others.

Aunt Mim brings lots of things they can use as decoration, and all of the other animals who live in the tree help with the decorating.  They tie bows on the pine cones, hang strings of berries, and paint balloons to look like large Christmas tree ornaments.

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Sure enough, once Santa knows how to find the Chipmunk children, they get the kind of Christmas they’ve been waiting for!

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This is just a cute picture book that I liked when I was young.  It is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.