Elmo's Delicious Christmas Elevates Oscar the Grouch

This is the year that Sesame Street celebrates 40 years at the forefront of children’s programming. While many of the characters from the first season remain well-loved today, probably the most popular Street resident, particularly among the show’s target audience, is latecomer Elmo. Furry, holly-red, high-pitched Elmo is the face of Elmo’s Delicious Christmas, written by Michaela Muntean and illustrated by Tom Leigh, and in some ways the book is about him. But it turns into as much of a story about grungy green grouch Oscar.

This brightly colored book, which is written in prose, starts off with Elmo helping his mom and aunt make Christmas cookies. Elmo loves being able to give them a hand, and he’s excited because this year, he’s also big enough to pass out the cookies at the big Christmas party that everyone is looking forward to. The book shows several different characters readying themselves for Christmas in a variety of ways.

Uptight Bert, jovial Ernie, naive Big Bird, unassuming Herry and the cackling Count are among those who are shown busy preparing for the holiday season. But Oscar doesn’t want anything to do with any of it. Christmas is just another disruption for him. It’s up to his neighbors to inject this Scrooge with some Christmas Spirit. Elmo is determined to find reasons for Oscar to love the holiday, and he helps the others concoct a special surprise for their friend. Like Charles Winchester in my favorite episode of M*A*S*H, Oscar finds himself uplifted by a small act of goodwill and inspired toward generosity for the less fortunate.

Elmo’s Delicious Christmas is a tasty little morsel of a book for the preschool set. Given Elmo’s popularity with the very young, perhaps it would have been a good idea to make this a board book, but the pages are reasonably sturdy as they are. Of course, in a series with so many wonderful characters, it’s a little disappointing when only a few of them make an appearance. It’s nice to see Herry in a rather prominent role, given how little he tends to be seen on the show nowadays. But what about Grover? Snuffy? Telly? What about most of the human contingent of Sesame Street? And, in a book featuring Christmas cookies on several pages, why isn’t Cookie Monster around to partake? Was he left off the guest list for fear he would obliterate the cookie supply before the party really had a chance to get going?

These small complaints aside, Elmo’s Delicious Christmas is a charming little story that urges kindness to one’s neighbors and may just inspire an afternoon of cookie-baking.