One series of books that has been extremely popular in my house is the I Spy
series, which asks readers to carefully examine photographs composed of
dozens of intricately arranged objects and identify a few specific
ones. The main brilliance of those books lies in the visual masterpieces
created by Walter Wick, but Jean Marzollo’s rhymes guide the experience
for the reader, allowing them to peruse with more purpose.
With Ten Little Christmas Presents,
Marzollo has the spotlight to herself. Her simple rhymes will have a
familiar ring to anyone familiar with her previous work. The verses
count down from ten and follow the pattern established by the first:
"Ten little Christmas presents, in snow so fine... / Mouse gets
earmuffs! Now there are nine.” On the left side, we see a specific
animal, while the page on the right takes us back to the dwindling stack
of gifts, each with a name tag attached.
This book features
ten different animals, and each of them receives a different article of
clothing. The owl receives a vest; the raccoon sports a scarf; the
woodchuck wears a sweater; the fox dons a poncho; the rabbit bundles up
in a snowsuit; the porcupine procures a pair of mittens; the chipmunk
gets a jacket; the blue jay displays a bonnet and the squirrel is nice
and cozy in a tail warmer. The back of the book includes a memory game
challenging kids to try to remember which gift goes with which animal.
It also might be worth discussing why each animal receives the present
he or she does, and which of the other distributed gifts might also have
been a good fit.
The watercolor illustrations in this book are cute but rather squiggly-looking. I much prefer the photos of I Spy,
but then those are very different books than this. According to an
interview on Marzollo’s website, this is a book whose text she dashed
off over the course of a train trip, with the artwork shortly following.
That’s not to say that she didn’t put care into it, though,
and the dedication to Kristen Mary Faust, a friend of hers who died at
the age of 27 in 2006, seems quite heartfelt. But it does seem likely to
have taken less time to put together than an I Spy book, and it certainly takes less time to read through. Repeat value is also more limited, and while I Spy attracts readers of all ages, the demographic for this one is definitely around ages 4 to 7.
Still, this is a cute addition to the plethora of Christmas counting books out there, so for animal-loving youngsters, Ten Little Christmas Presents is worth a look.
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