ChildrensPictureBook.info Review

Merry Un-Christmas
Author Mike Reiss
Illustrator David Catrow
Publisher HarperCollins

What if Christmas came everyday of the year but one? Every day there are Christmas gifts, a bike and a pony, and Christmas dinner, turkey and dressing. Such is life in Christmas City, Texmas where on every day of the year except one Christmas is celebrated. Poor Noelle is bored-very bored-with Christmas and can't wait for that most unmagical day of the year, Un-Christmas, to come. For Un-Christmas, all the decorations must come down and there are no Christmas specials on television. Noelle can watch the ever-delightful Gilligan's Island. On Un-Christmas Day the mailman actually comes and delivers stacks of bills and junk mail and Noelle gets to go to school. For dinner, there's a real treat, TV dinners, and everyone goes down town for the annual delighting of the town Christmas tree. Noelle wishes it were Un-Christmas every day. Her mom tells her she'd grow tired of that, but Noelle is sure she wouldn't. Noelle's Un-Christmas day ends with her snuggled in bed with her dog and a math book.

David Catrow's Suess-like illustrations make this book visual fun in addition to the fun of considering whether you would ever grow tired of Christmas. I expect that many a young child would respond as Noelle does about Un-Christmas, they just couldn't imagine growing tired of Christmas.

Merry Un-Christmas

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