Christmas Eve and Other Stories - Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Trans-Siberian Orchestra is associated almost exclusively with Christmas, and Christmas Eve and Other Stories is the album that started that association, particularly Christmas Eve / Sarajevo 12/24. They're known for their electrified arrangements of traditional carols, though my favorite track on the album is the unplugged original, Old City Bar.

Christmas Like a Lullaby - John Denver

John Denver is pretty much my favorite solo artist ever, so it caught me by surprise to discover Christmas Like a Lullaby, an album whose existence had escaped my attention for well over a decade. Though I prefer his two other Christmas albums, A Christmas Together (with the Muppets) and Rocky Mountain Christmas, this one is good too, especially the title track and The Children of Bethlehem.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Of all the movies in the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is the one I most associate with Halloween.  Maybe because of all the spiders.  It's also perhaps the funniest, thanks in large part to Kenneth Branagh, and the only movie so far whose ending I actually prefer to the book's.

Straight Outta Lynwood - Weird Al Yankovic

I don't like most modern music much, but I love Weird Al's spoofing of it in Straight Outta Lynwood. Don't Download This Song and White and Nerdy are particularly brilliant tracks.

A Thousand Different Ways - Clay Aiken

Clay Aiken offers up an album full of romance with A Thousand Different Ways.

Beach Boys Concert

I've never seen as many people stuffed into one small space in Erie as when I attended the Beach Boys concert.

Peter Paul and Mary Concert

Peter, Paul & Mary is perhaps the most magical concert I've ever attended. And dude, I've seen Simon and Garfunkel.

Must Pigs Fly Before This Farmer's Wife Gets a Little Help?

When you're as accomplished an artist as Arnold Lobel, what reason would there be for not illustrating one of your own books? I contemplated this when I borrowed the book A Treeful of Pigs from the library. As the illustrator is Anita Lobel, his wife, my guess is that they either dreamed up the idea together or that he wanted the opportunity to give her career a boost by collaborating with him. When two people in the same family have such talent, it seems natural that they would eventually join forces. At any rate, she's up to the task, and her vibrant drawings have a lovely folksy quality about them that perfectly complements the straightforward but silly story.

A Treeful of Pigs is not an I CAN READ book. It is presented in a considerably larger format, with plenty of room for the pictures that fill the pages. Every other page is entirely devoted to a picture, most of which depict the pudgy farmer (bearing a mustache and head of black hair reminiscent of Mario of Nintendo fame) lazing about in bed or reacting to the unusual antics of the pigs he convinced his wife to take in. The text is cleverly framed by another illustration, and these are a bit more stylized, with creative borders on top rather like the ones Jan Brett uses in so many of her books.

The story reads like a folk tale, and there are hints of the classic The Little Red Hen. A farmer sees a dozen pigs for sale and is eager to purchase them. When his wife objects, citing all the hard work raising them will require, the farmer assures her that the job will be simple, especially since they will be working together. When it comes time to actually take care of his newly acquired livestock, however, the farmer makes like Toad in several of Lobel's Frog and Toad books and unequivocally states his intention to remain in bed.

There is an enjoyable cadence to this book as the wife goes to the husband with her request that he assist her in some caretaking task and he responds by promising to help her some other time, providing a highly unusual set of circumstances by which that time is defined. The wife, determined and self-sufficient, performs the necessary tasks but also manages cleverly to bring to fruition her husband's unlikely scenarios, causing the pigs to bloom like flowers, dangle from a tree and fall from the sky like rain. Each time, however, the farmer goes back on his promise, and she has little recourse but to grumble about what a lazy husband she has.

Finally, annoyed by all the interruptions in his napping, the farmer wishes the pigs would just disappear. But when they actually do, he begins to appreciate how much his wife has done for him up to this point. This is a sweet and funny story about equality in marital relationships and making good on your promises. Enjoyable as the book is likely to be for kids, I think married couples might get an even bigger kick out of this silly but ultimately touching tale of cooperation and compromise.

Everyone is Good for Something, Sunbathing Alligators (or Crocodiles) Included

James Marshall is probably best known for his books about George and Martha, a pair of hippos who are very good friends. But he wrote quite a few books about a variety of different creatures, and Willis contains quite an array of animals within its pages. The titular character is an alligator - or is it a crocodile? Marshall never identifies his species for us, so we’re left to our own familiarity with reptilian biology on that one. Suffice it to say that Willis is a large, unhappy, scaly creature. Rather than lurking in a swamp as most of his species might be content to do, Willis insists on lounging on the beach. Unfortunately, his eyes aren’t so good, and they are extremely irritated by the sunlight. So instead of enjoying his exotic surroundings, he spends his days moping, and as the book opens, we find him dampening the sand with his salty tears.

 

Happily for him and us, three kind-hearted strangers happen upon him in his misery. The ring-leader is a large pink bird on a bicycle, and riding in baskets on either end are a snake and lobster, both green. Lobster doesn’t have much to say, fond as he is of going to sleep. Snake is a bit more talkative, and he’s very eager to help Willis purchase a pair of sunglasses for 29 cents so he can enjoy the beach like everyone else. But Bird is the real go-getter, and he has the logical idea that they should work to earn the remaining 19 cents, after the dime the snake has agreed to contribute.

What follows is a series of ridiculous mishaps as the new friends attempt several jobs, finding themselves hopelessly inept when it comes to each of them. Their disastrous efforts are amusing, as is the notion of buying something for 29 cents or being paid 19 cents for a grueling task. The illustrations are simplistic, flat and mostly limited to the same shades of pink, yellow and green. There is great whimsy in their lack of frills. I’m especially fond of one picture, in which we see Bird glaring disapprovingly down at Snake, who, with a pink ribbon around his neck, innocently hold a dime in his mouth as an offering to Willis to buy himself the comfort he seeks.

After all their misadventures, the friends wise up a bit by deciding to figure out just what it is that they are particularly good at. Unsurprisingly, Lobster announces that he excels at sleeping, and it’s rather logical that the Snake happens to be a good hypnotist. Willis and Bird have more unexpected talents, but each has something impressive to share, so they finally decide to earn the sunglasses by putting on a talent show (for which they build a stage, with no explanation as to where they found the money to do that…).

Willis is a story about perseverance and about making good use of your talents. But mostly, it’s the tale of four mismatched creatures who do a lot of silly things, and Marshall’s desire for kids to “laugh uncontrollably” when they read his books is likely to come to fruition as youngsters peruse the pages.

The Family Stone

In The Family Stone, a dysfunctional family convenes for Christmas, where a dark secret ultimately brings them closer together.