Susan Boyle Presents The Gift of Her Voice to the World

Last year, Scottish spinster Susan Boyle wowed the world with a powerhouse performance of I Dreamed a Dream on Britain’s Got Talent. A mere half a year later, her first album hit stores, and among the mix of pop standards and hymns was Silent Night, the only nod to its near-Christmas release. Given Boyle’s deep Christian faith and her knack for covering well-worn standards in a heartfelt manner, a full-blown Christmas album seemed all but inevitable, provided her career continued long enough for a second release. I just didn’t expect it quite so soon.

The Gift is the simple name of Boyle’s second, and much more seasonal, album. The front features her head shot, in which her eyes seem to twinkle in response to the enormous star on the left side of the cover. Shadowy buildings lurk below a spangled sky, and I can only presume we’re meant to be seeing the little town of Bethlehem. Inside, Boyle explains each of her song selections, which were chosen with the help of Nick Raymonde and scowling softie Simon Cowell, and in reference to the five Christmas songs, she expresses her love of the Nativity story. Unsurprisingly, The Gift is a reverent album. It’s her using the gift she was given and in turn presenting a gift to the world.

The album features only ten tracks, which is a bit on the slim side, though you won’t break the bank buying it; thanks to a timely coupon, I snagged mine for nine bucks, and it retails for just $14. While I would certainly consider this a Christmas album, three of the tracks are poppy and hardly qualify as Christmas songs, while another is religious but generally not associated with this season. Still another focuses not on Christmas but New Year’s Eve.

Perfect Day, the first track on the album, was the only song I didn’t recognize. Slow and romantic, this Lou Reed song features lovely piano and transcendent choral vocals, especially on the refrain. I also like the sweet simplicity of the image of two people feeding animals in the zoo and having a wonderful time doing so.

I was a little surprised to see Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah on the track list because Boyle comes across as so... innocent. And that song, much as I love it... isn’t. Boyle herself describes it as “macabre” and “dark,” yet she is drawn to it, and her piano-backed vocals are quite stirring. The choir again adds aural majesty, with the high harmonies sounding particularly ethereal. The song ends rather strangely, cutting off mid-verse before returning to the chorus; it takes a little getting used to, but I love the sense of vulnerability in her delivery, and leaving off the second half of the verse accentuates the beauty of the relationship rather than the brokenness.

Boyle does a nice job with Neil Finn’s Don’t Dream It’s Over, especially as she’s accompanied by the children’s choir from the Centre for Young Musicians in London. Having them on board adds to the sense of hope for the future. A cappella sensation Straight No Chaser recently included this in its first non-seasonal album, and I must admit I prefer that version, but only by a smidgen.

In eighth grade, I had a teacher who made everyone in our class memorize the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, so Make Me a Channel of Your Peace is familiar territory for me, and it seems to be the one track about which Boyle feels most strongly, as she sees herself an instrument of God’s peace, having been offered an opportunity to share her music and faith with the world. I don’t necessarily think of this as a Christmas song, though a version of it can be found embedded in A Simple Prayer, a much peppier track on The Little Drummer Boy by the Harry Simeone Chorale, a group practically synonymous with this time of year. In both contexts, it really seems more like a daily supplication than a particular consideration for this season, but it fits in well with the album, and Boyle’s vocals are beautiful.

Considering Boyle’s Scottish heritage, it seems quite fitting for her to sing Auld Lang Syne, that New Year’s standard by Robert Burns, one of that country’s most beloved poets. I also imagine the words must have some personal resonance for her, as this experience has probably given her cause to reevaluate some of the relationships in her life and determine which are most valuable. While I prefer Dan Fogelberg’s melancholy Same Old Lang Syne to the song from whose title it borrows, this track would be a nice way to ring in the new year.

Half of the album consists of straightforward religious Christmas songs. Her rendition of The First Noel is quiet, with acoustic guitar the most prominent instrument. Metro Voices, a classical choir, join her for this track, while the children’s choir is back for Away in a Manger, which utilizes the slightly less common melody for the Sunday School classic. In addition to Boyle, young soloist Jacob Ramsay-Patel deserves commendation for this one, as he performs the opening lines exquisitely. O Come All Ye Faithful, the final track on the album, is richly harmonic. Though it’s the shortest of the recordings, it closes out the CD on a high note.

I‘m always on the hunt for a rendition of O Holy Night that I can call my definitive version, as I consider it my favorite carol. I don’t think I can award that honor to Boyle, mostly because she omits my favorite verse, as do so many others who have recorded it. Nonetheless, hers is one of the most moving recordings of the song that I have heard, with the choir coming in at just the right time to lend the sense the we are catching the strains of a heavenly chorus. I also love the delicate harp accompaniment midway through the song.

I generally claim Do You Hear What I Hear? as my second-favorite Christmas song, and it’s a highlight of this album because it introduces Amber Stassi, the vocalist who won the Susan’s Search contest to sing a duet with her. The two women’s voices complement one another quite well, and Stassi’s has a warm, passionate tone to it that adds an impression of sincerity to her performance. My only complaint is that there is very little opportunity to hear Stassi and Boyle together, as they usually switch off on the verses. When they do harmonize, the effect is enchanting.

Among those listed in the credits, the most prominent seem to be Steve Mac and Dave Arch, who share arranging credit on several of the tracks. Instrumentalists include drummer Chris Laws, guitarist John Parricelli and accordionist Eddie Hession. The liner notes conclude with a plug for Boyle’s memoir, The Woman I Was Born To Be, which I haven’t picked up yet but hope to soon. As someone charmed by this woman’s unassuming manner and powerful voice, I’d love to learn more about what brought her to this point. In the meantime, I’ll be listening to her Christmas album and counting mine among the lives she has blessed with her God-given instrument.

The Grumpy Shepherd Changes His Tune

Ever since Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, a frequent theme in Christmas stories has been the transformation of an irritable, antisocial character into one who is joyous and fulfilled. In Paddie Devon’s The Grumpy Shepherd, that person is Joram, a burly, surly shepherd who roams the hills outside of Bethlehem, looking after sheep he can’t stand. His fellow shepherds, Obed and Josiah, are happy enough with their lives, but Joram grumbles at every turn. Then, when an angel visitation leads his friends and him to the manger at the inn in town, Joram begins to have a change of heart...

Devon writes in prose, with a paragraph or two on most pages, though those without illustrations have more text than that. The first letter on most of the pages is extra-large and offset in a box with a simple illustration behind it. For instance, one page features a star in this box; another shows a jeweled crown. There are 15 of these, though the images repeat, so there are only half a dozen different pictures, including the top of a shepherd’s staff - which I at first thought was a snake, and I was trying to figure out how that fit in - and a piece of pottery.

The writing is fine, albeit a little simplified. I find it a little strange that the Biblical quotes are rewritten to sound slightly more contemporary and down-to-earth. The effect for me is that the announcement of the angels doesn’t sound nearly as majestic as it should. Additionally, the book specifically has Gabriel introduce himself as the leader of the contingent of angels appearing to the shepherds. While I don‘t think that this is the first book to incorporate Gabriel into this scene, the Bible never identifies him as playing a part in it, making him seem slightly out of place. I do love the choice of names for the shepherds, though.

Devon’s illustrations have an appealing warmth to them. They feel cozy with all that bright light pouring down out of the sky and the shepherds all bundled in layers of warm robes, their faces protected by thick beards. The sheep all look drowsy, while the shepherds have more animated expressions on their faces, generally cheerful for Josiah and Obed and cantankerous for Joram, whose arched eyebrows make him look especially menacing.

The climax of the book could have been written a little more smoothly for maximum effect. Seeing Jesus in the manger has an immediate effect upon Joram, and he returns to his sheep full of purpose and zest for life, but it all happens so instantaneously that it doesn’t have the strength that it could. A similar transformation is handled better in The Last Straw, which focuses on Hoshmakaka, an ornery, haughty camel who journeys to Bethlehem with the wise men. I’d recommend that first, but The Grumpy Shepherd is still a cute Christmas book with a worthwhile message.

Big Bird Is Generous But Impatient in I Can't Wait Until Christmas

December can be a very long month for a kid who’s anxious for Christmas to arrive. That’s just what Big Bird comes to realize in the Little Golden Book I Can’t Wait Until Christmas, written by Linda Lee Maifair.

This vintage Sesame Street book finds the enormous but perpetually kindergartener-ish Big Bird so psyched for Christmas that he can scarcely stand it. What’s sweet about this is that he’s not primarily excited about unwrapping brightly colored packages with his name on them. Instead, he’s beside himself with anticipation over the thought of his beloved Granny - a sweet senior who looks just like Big Bird except for the flowery clothes, the ornate necklace around her neck and the little spectacles on her nose - opening the gift that he made especially for her.

So antsy is Big Bird that every few days, he asks his granny if she wouldn’t just like to come over and open her present early, or at least let him give her a hint as to what it might be. But Granny stands firm, and to distract him, she suggests he participate in a variety of pre-Christmas activities. In this simple story mostly about two people (er, birds), this is where the rest of the Sesame Street gang comes in.

Several of the major Muppets from the show have a place in this book, which is colorfully illustrated by Joe Ewers. Even though the characters are two-dimensional, Ewers does a wonderful job of making them come to life on the page. The only one who looks a little unnatural is Maria, the only human featured in the book. Interestingly, a note on the title page makes a point of noting that Sonia Manzano portrays Maria on the show. She only turns up on one page and looks just a little out of place in this imaginative animated world, but she’s still clearly recognizable.

Of the Muppets, we get to see Snuffleupagus, who amusingly sits on Santa’s lap at the mall as dozens of youngsters of various hues look on, and Cookie Monster, who helps Big Bird make and consume Christmas cookies. Bert, Ernie, the Count and Oscar join Big Bird in his hunt for the perfect Christmas tree, each finding one ideal for himself (except the Count, who’s too busy counting trees). Afterward, they give him a hand in decorating, creating ornaments that reflect their personalities.

This is a cute book that shows children the importance of patience in preparing for Christmas and offers several tips for things that they can do to make the days go by more quickly. Its emphasis on helping one’s friends appreciate the joys of the season is endearing, as is the focus upon giving rather than receiving. Waiting for Christmas may not be easy, but Big Bird, with a little help from his friends and his beloved grandmother, sets a good example.

The LOST Encyclopedia Is a Mostly-Worthy Guide to the Epic Series

On May 23, 2010, the television series LOST came to a close, and fans were left to ponder the show’s legacy in the weeks that followed. While the summer brought plenty of fresh fan-created merchandise and a second wave of official bobbleheads, the season six DVD set didn’t come out until late August, and the season six soundtracks took another couple of months. October saw the release of the LOST Encyclopedia, an expansive guide to the show.

I was excited to receive my copy, particularly as I had the good fortune to win an autographed edition in a trivia contest - though as I’d been looking forward to this book for a long time, I had already ordered one, and it arrived just a day after I won. So while I pondered what to do with the extra encyclopedia, I cracked it open and began to read. It took me three weeks, but I’ve now read every entry in the encyclopedia, and while hard-core fans won’t find anything too revelatory within, it’s a handsome book and a rather handy resource.

LOST is a series that captured my imagination like no other, and as I delved deeper into the intricacies of the show, I consulted the website Lostpedia again and again. In terms of sheer volume of material, that website is more comprehensive by far than this official book, and unlike the LOST Encyclopedia, it also features extensive information about cast, crew, fandom, props, locations and other elements of the series beyond the inner world of the show itself. As hefty as the book already is, I’d say it was a good call to restrict the book’s scope to that fictional world instead of incorporating production information. I do think it might have been nice to include the episode titles in the index, linking them to the passages directly relating to them, but the book doesn’t feel incomplete without them.

The DK encyclopedia is the product of several years of work by Paul Terry and Tara Bennett, who worked together on LOST: The Official Magazine. The book is about 400 pages long and contains more than 1500 images from the show, mostly photographs. It includes a one-page foreword by executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse in which they attempt to explain the manner in which they went about creating the show, which was fairly purposeful but not neat and tidy. They offer a definition of a show’s “bible” that seems to have more to do with theology than screenwriting and may raise a few eyebrows among the orthodox. “But to us, a bible is something deeply spiritual, something that you take on faith that can be interpreted any number of ways. It is almost never literal. A bible is something that allows the reader to take from it whatever he or she wants to take...”

Aside from this slight digression - which reminded me that while spiritual stimulation abounds in LOST, it’s not necessarily the most reliable source of spiritual direction - the introduction is mostly a way for them to introduce their preferred metaphor for the show’s blueprint - not a “bible,” but an “iceberg.” That’s hardly a new idea among writers; I’m always hearing about how 90 percent of the information about characters and timelines and plot details and such lurks beneath the surface of a good story, known only to the author but essential for helping to craft that world. But it fits well with LOST. Rather frustratingly, they tell us of this fabled iceberg and then turn around and indicate that we’re still not going to delve too far down below the surface, since “it was incredibly important to us to maintain the purposeful interpretive quality of the show.” In other words, don’t expect to find out how Jacob and Ilana met or how Karl and Tom became Others or who was in the other outrigger in that notorious shootout or what those who left the Island on the Ajira plane did once they returned to civilization. However, the book does offer some interesting tidbits.

Perhaps the most illuminating new information is the exact date of the Purge, which is much earlier than I originally thought and certainly doesn’t jive with the timeline indicated by Horace in John’s season four vision. The encyclopedia doesn’t explain why the two don’t match up; at this point, I’m inclined to just consider it a continuity error. But 1987, the date given by the encyclopedia, makes considerably more sense, partly because it gives a more immediate reason for the particular timing of it, partly because it means that DHARMA was already in Ben’s past when Alex came into his life.

Another interesting bit of information was the fact that Eloise Hawking gave her son the last name Faraday as an homage to noted physicist Michael Faraday, in whose scientific footsteps she encouraged him to walk. She also hoped the name change would reduce the likelihood of his father locating him. Ben’s childhood friend Annie, arguably my favorite minor flashback character, still doesn’t even get a last name, nor does the section on her include a photograph; instead, it is completely dwarfed by a picture of vile conman Anthony Cooper, whose section encompasses a page and a half and includes three photos. Sigh. But we do at least learn definitively that she left the Island around the time of the Incident and never returned, which leaves me free to imagine her as an adult, rummaging through childhood treasures and coming across a hand-carved figure of a boy, which will cause her to wistfully recall the friend upon whom her brief friendship made such a lasting impact.

Speaking of Annie, she is one of the reasons I am so taken with Apollo Bars, as she offered one to Ben on the day he arrived on the Island. Years later, the ever-empathetic Hurley shared one of the same bars with Ben, which cemented them in my mind as being connected with friendship and new beginnings. After reading this encyclopedia, however, I’m slightly less anxious to try one of the bars myself, as the ingredient list includes such delicacies as mouse toes and lark’s vomit. (!) More appealing is the detail of the name of Danielle’s ship: the Besixdouze. I suppose it must have been visible at some point on the show, but I never noticed it, and it sheds light on one of the most cryptic titles in the series. While I still like to think of the episode The Little Prince as being largely about Daniel Faraday, who is a “prince” by virtue of having two parents who ruled the Others and who spends the episode actively working to protect the ailing Charlotte, just as Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s prince felt responsible for the rose he so loved, the French team’s connection to the title is strengthened by the fact that the boat shares a name with the prince’s home asteroid.

Also interesting to me were the reasons behind Libby’s stay in Santa Rosa, the mental institution where Hurley spent a fair bit of time; the status of flight attendant Cindy and Zack and Emma, the children in her care, after their last appearance on the show; the explanation that the Smoke Monster could take two forms at once; and the definitive revelation of who killed the remaining survivors of the Ajira flight. I also enjoyed the lists of DHARMA members, Others and Oceanic survivors, several of whom I didn’t remember, and the translations of the ancient markings on the Temple, the Island’s cork and Jacob’s tapestries. It was fun to see the Mr. Cluck’s Chicken Shack Code of Ethics on one of several purely visual two-page spreads sprinkled throughout the book. Another focuses upon music, and I was delighted to see two Jim Croce albums tossed into the mix, as he was the one singer who I most hoped to hear during the show’s fifth season. Because these displays are collages that don’t indicate the source of the images, I’m not entirely sure why Croce is there, but I’m assuming that those albums were a part of the record collection in the Swan hatch.

The book is laid out attractively, with most pages featuring multiple photographs, along with several entries. Each of the major characters merits at least two pages and sometimes as many as six, usually with several sub-sections. Other major aspects of the show, like the Swan and the Polar Bears, similarly merit several pages. While the majority of the information within the book pertains specifically to the show, there are occasional text boxes that delve more deeply into historical connections. For instance, the entry on Magnus Hanso includes a description of St. Albertus Magnus, a 12th-century bishop whose name I’d never heard before but who apparently was an Aristotelian scholar with a profound interest in the intersection of science and faith, one of the show’s central themes.

I was a little surprised at first that the characters are listed by first name instead of last, but this seems fitting, since we generally hear their first names much more often, and it spreads things out a bit so that we’re not spending ten pages on various members of the same family. Aside from an overuse of the words “ironically,” “tragically” and “unfortunately,” the entries are generally well-written and insightful, though there are numerous instances in which whoever was writing the entry seemed to switch gears partway through the sentence, with garbled results. For instance, we get this, under the heading of the Others: “Within the Others, Jacob and Alpert had never appointed anyone within the Others as a de facto leader, as she was a fervent believer in protecting the island.” The “she” is Eloise Hawking, but she’s not mentioned until two sentences later, and even if she had been brought up earlier, the sentence doesn’t make any sense.

The concluding clause is repeated toward the end of the paragraph, and that time it is logical, but it’s one of several examples of the same phrase, sentence or paragraph being inadvertently repeated. This is especially jarring in the section on the Man in Black, as it features two gray boxes that, despite distinct headings, contain virtually the same two sentences, and also reiterates the connections the Man in Black forms with Sayid and Sawyer. Additionally, there are occasional misspellings or missing words, and once in a great while, the facts are wrong as well, such as the indication that Roger Linus died on December 23, rather than on his son’s birthday, December 19. I could overlook a typo or two, but this is supposed to be the ultimate official companion to the series, so I wish that they had taken the time to do one more round of editing.

One reason it’s probably good that the encyclopedia doesn’t deliver too many major revelations is that I’m not sure fans would too readily accept them. We say we want answers, but the fact is that we’ve already formulated our own ideas about things, and if they don’t gel, then chances are we won’t be swayed by new information even if it does have the “authoritative” stamp on it. As for me, I took exception to the entry on Ilana when it states, “Uncertain if Frank Lapidus was a candidate, she knocked him out and brought him along with her group.” The first time we heard the word “candidate” was in association with Frank, as Bram asked Ilana if she thought he was a candidate. However, she never answered, and in light of Dr. Linus and Ab Aeterno, which revealed that Jacob gave her a dossier on each of his remaining candidates, I’m pretty sure that Ilana knew all along that Frank wasn’t a candidate, and that’s one of the main reasons I came to love her so much. Not only did she extend grace to the man who murdered her father figure, she is an embodiment of LOST’s Redshirts Matter philosophy, seeing value in Frank that Jacob evidently never noticed. She looks on Frank as “important” not because he could be a candidate but because she values his stalwart spirit. Or that’s how I see it, anyway. So I’m clinging to that particular interpretation, but aside from the poor editing, I had few issues in terms of content.

If you’re fascinated by the Numbers, you’re in luck, since each one gets a page to itself in a clever arrangement of instances of that number both on the Island and off. The Numbers as a whole also get their own two-page entry, and several of the other entries include a “By the Numbers” box that mentions ways in which the Numbers came into play in association with that entry. Numerous quotes from the show make their way into the book, and a large section of Sawyer’s entry includes dozens of nicknames he gave to various characters. Each major character also has sub-sections focusing on their interactions with particular other characters, and it’s interesting to see how they affected each other differently. I especially enjoyed reading about how Hurley’s benevolent presence influenced each of the castaways. Along with hundreds of action shots, the book also provides maps, diagrams and other visual materials that I look forward to perusing more closely with a magnifying glass. I’m particularly intrigued by the snippets from Daniel Faraday’s journal.

Speaking of Daniel, he doesn’t make it into the book’s epilogue of sorts, aside from a small screenshot from his scribblings. Season six’s controversial Sideways timeline is relegated to a few pages after the index, and nowhere in the book is there an explicit explanation of just what the nature of this place is, except for the quote on the last page from the show’s final moments. The layout of these pages is different, with plenty of photographs and quotes and only two or three paragraphs indicating the journey of each major Sideways character, in the order in which they came to realize what the Sideways was all about. That’s only 11 characters, each with a two-page spread, except Jin and Sun, who share one. There’s also one spread dedicated to the distinctive window seen in the show’s final moments and one last page that features the concluding dialogue. It’s less detailed than the rest of the encyclopedia, but the presentation is quite lovely, so those who enjoyed that part of the storyline can peruse it with pleasure while those who reviled it can simply pretend the book ends with the index.

While I confess myself disappointed in the sloppy editing, I’m very satisfied with the book overall. I didn’t really expect answers to most of the burning questions remaining after the screen went black for the final time, and I appreciated the little bits of extra information that Bennett and Terry did dole out. For fans who are already like walking LOST encyclopedias themselves, the LOST Encyclopedia won’t add a whole lot to their knowledge base, but it is a thorough, eye-catching tribute to their favorite show, and I expect that it will have a place atop many coffee tables in the months to come.

Merry Christmas, Amanda & April Celebrates Sisterhood With All Its Wrinkles

Amanda is a young pig who wants to be good. Really she does. But sometimes, it can be so hard! As Christmas approaches in Merry Christmas, Amanda & April, she has only one thing on her mind: a Snuggly Baby Pig that says “Mama” whenever you pull its string. But she worries that Santa will find her virtue lacking. She must work to improve her track record, even if it means taking care of her little sister April.

Bonnie Pryer’s prose makes clear that one of these sisters is very good at following instructions, while the other is not. There’s a thread of sibling rivalry running through the book as Amanda resents the fact that being obedient comes so naturally to April and April fears that Amanda is going to get them into trouble by dawdling at the park when they should be going straight to the store for the baking supplies their mother requested. What’s more, April appears to be pretty young - about the equivalent of a preschooler - and Amanda is fairly neglectful when it comes to keeping an eye on her.

Throughout the book, Amanda makes a number of mistakes. However, while she has a forceful personality, a desire to change is evident, as is a sense of concern for others. That becomes especially clear toward the end of the book when she makes a significant sacrifice for the sake of someone in need. Hence, this is a story of personal growth, and though April acts largely as Amanda’s conscience, Amanda performs her most noble act with no prompting from her sister.

Diane de Groat’s watercolor illustrations are charming, showing the anthropomorphic pigs all dressed in their cozy winter best as they trek through town. It’s fun to point out all of the pig-centric items in the book, from the snowpigs that April creates while waiting for Amanda to finish sledding to the little toy pigs in April’s dollhouse. Other animals that come up include a hound dog, a Billy goat, a rabbit, a beaver, a porcupine and a squirrel. The paintings are full of colorful details, and de Groat’s representation of the sky’s changing colors as the sun begins to set is especially lovely.

For young children with siblings, Merry Christmas, Amanda & April is a cute book that encourages heartfelt generosity and celebrates the sisterly bond despite all of the squabbles that often accompany it.

Devout Hershel Brings Hanukkah Back to a Goblin-Tormented Town

Eric Kimmel is an author who has made a name for himself with several picture books rooted in Jewish traditions. In Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins, one of his most lauded books, he draws from folklore to craft the tale of a clever man who outwits the goblins who have kept the residents of a tiny village from celebrating Hanukkah.

Hershel of Ostropol is a cheerful wanderer whose wits have clearly served him well in his travels. When he learns of the plague of goblins infecting the synagogue upon the hill, he takes it upon himself to outsmart the lot of them, thus reclaiming the sacred holiday for the people down below in the town.

Some of the methods he uses feel very familiar. In particular, I recall a Mickey Mouse book called Mickey Meets the Giant, which appears to have been based on a pre-existing story, in which Mickey fools a giant into believing that he can wring water out of a rock. Something very similar happens in this book, with Hershel crushing a rock that is, in reality, an egg. Another trick, which involves tricking a goblin into gambling away all of his money, reminds me of the game that Captain Kirk makes up in an episode of Star Trek.

That said, this is certainly an original story, and it’s fun to contemplate how the devoutly Jewish Hershel might go about tricking his next nemesis. Kimmel actually skips over three of the days, which is rather a shame, since it’s so amusing to see Hershel outwit those goblins. However, this gives us more time to perceive how much more formidable a foe the Goblin King is. While Hershel always has the upper hand in his previous encounters, it’s obvious that this frightening specter is going to give him some trouble.

One neat thing about the book is the way Kimmel deftly drops references to elements of a traditional Hanukkah celebration. We see Hershel eat pickles and hard-boiled eggs and play the dreidel game with a goblin - though, as Kimmel helpfully points out in a note in the back, Hershel makes up rules that render it impossible for him to lose. Through it all, the golden menorah rests on a small wooden table, and Hershel finds a way to light the candles each night, with the final night the most miraculous feat of all.

This is a Caldecott Honor Book, and it’s easy to see why, as Trina Schart Hyman’s wonderfully detailed illustrations truly bring the characters to life. Her artistic style is realistic, particularly when it comes to depicting humble, hairy Hershel, who nearly always has a twinkle in his eye. The goblins, meanwhile, are marvelously creative, from the tiny purple winged creature who harasses Hershel on the first night to the terrifying, wraith-like final visitor. The paintings are dark, with the blackness of the aged building only pierced by the illumination of a few candles, which emphasizes their importance.

There’s a fair bit of text in Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins, so it probably would be best suited to children of at least seven or eight, though it could work as a read-aloud for younger kids. While the story might be especially appreciated by Jewish children, Kimmel’s explanations in the back of the book make this clever story accessible to those from all backgrounds.

Carly Simon Encourages Music-Making in The Boy of the Bells

I’m very familiar with Carly Simon as a singer-songwriter, but it wasn’t until recently that I discovered that she has also written children’s books. One of them is The Boy of the Bells, a charming story set in the far north town of Noel. The village is so far north, in fact, that it is the first stop on Santa’s annual trek, and it is the task of the local bell ringer to signal midnight, the time for the journey to begin.

Ben is a young boy whose grandfather usually has that job, but this year, Grandfather Juniper’s mind is on other things. Ben’s sister, Miranda, has stopped speaking. It’s been months since anyone heard a peep out of her. The situation has him so upset that he asks Ben to do his job for him. Though he is proud and excited to have been given such an important job, Ben worries about Miranda as well and misses their conversations. Hence, he decides to use his position to summon Santa early and see if he can suggest anything that might help her.

Simon’s prose has a lyrical quality to it, particularly when she describes the dreams of the villagers on the night before Christmas. Embedded in the story are lessons about responsibility and musicianship; it should probably come as no surprise that a woman who has made a career out of music would make a voice and musical instruments the focal points of her story. The “make your own kind of music” theme plays out especially well.

Speaking of that Cass Elliot song, I couldn’t help thinking of LOST as I finished reading this book. That’s because it introduces a major oddity and never explains it. Why did Miranda suddenly lose her voice? Santa tells Ben, “I can’t always tell you why some things happen the way they do. There are many mysteries in the universe.” This seems like a line from Across the Sea, the much-reviled episode that attempts to answer several of the show’s remaining questions but ultimately introduces just as many. For the most part, those hoping for concrete answers came away disappointed, and I suspect that may be the case in this book as well.

However, even though she doesn’t tell us what happened to Miranda to make her stop speaking, Simon weaves an endearing tale of sibling love and creative expression. Additionally, each of the women dedicates the book to her son and his grandfathers, accentuating the sense of family connection within its pages. Margo Datz’s illustrations have a Scandinavian flavor to them, and the full-page paintings, framed with wooden borders, are filled with details that give readers a very strong sense of place, particularly with the clothing that the characters wear.

Unexplained afflictions aside, The Boy of the Bells is a well-crafted book that recognizes the beauty of music and family, and I look forward to reading Simon’s other forays into children’s literature.

Celtic Thunder's Neil Byrne Demonstrates His Radio Readiness With the Aptly Named Sensitive Souls

Anyone who’s watched one of Celtic Thunder’s DVDs is familiar with dizzyingly talented instrumentalist Neil Byrne, though it’s only in the last few months that he has been highlighted as a lead vocalist alongside George Donaldson, Ryan Kelly, Paul Byrom, Keith Harkin and Damian McGinty. With the group’s last two releases, It’s Entertainment and Celtic Thunder Christmas, Neil has stepped up to do solo and group numbers, while the current tour has him switching off among guitars, drums and vocals. I’m trying to recall if he leaves the stage at any point in the concert; certainly, he’s up there longer than any of the main quintet, and only Brendan Monaghan, who plays a variety of traditional Celtic instruments, comes close to him in terms of showing off his musical diversity.

When I heard that Neil had an EP out, I was excited. Initially, it was only available to download, but I held out for the physical CD, which I was able to order on the very day that I went to my second Celtic Thunder concert. I’d spoken with Neil very briefly after last year’s concert, and before this year’s, I had the chance for a slightly more leisurely conversation, during which I mentioned that I’d ordered his EP, for which he seemed genuinely grateful. It’s interesting that his first album came out within a month of Ryan’s; like his fellow Celtic Thunder member, Neil projects a sense of palpable excitement that this personal project has been completed and is now out there for the world to enjoy.

I received my copy of Neil’s album six days after I ordered it, which coincidentally was the very day that Ryan’s came out. Sensitive Souls arrived in a padded envelope direct from Ireland, along with a jaunty photograph of Neil perched on a bike, wearing an impish grin and a tweed cap. At this time, you can get the MP3 version of Neil’s album from such sites as Amazon and iTunes, but for the physical album, you need to go to www.neilbyrnemusic.com, where several package deals are offered; just the CD itself costs $8.99, with no additional tax or shipping charges. Although there are only four songs on the CD, this seemed pretty reasonable to me, especially considering the fact that it would have to cross an ocean to get here.

The album comes in a simple cardboard case. The cover shows a black-and-white photo of Neil atop a stack of what look like old love letters, which fits especially well with the album’s first track, Sadie Jones and I; I later discovered that the photograph I had received is featured in the music video for that song. The interior gives us a double dose of Neil in a more modern pose, as he appears to be cradling a boombox, or perhaps an amplifier. This same image shows up on the back, but with a close-up on his hands. While there’s very little in the way of liner notes, the back cover credits Ewa Danowska with the photography, AMP Visual with art direction and Michael Keeney as co-producer of the album. It also notes who wrote each song. His website does offer more in the way of background, particularly on the Sadie Jones and I video, which is one of the sweetest professional music videos I‘ve ever watched. Also illuminating are the About section and his introductory video from September.

Sadie Jones and I - This song has a refreshingly innocent vibe to it that’s amplified upon watching the video, which consists of black-and-white still photographs meant to evoke the 1950s, with occasional splashes of color or a quick succession of pictures to create an animated effect. It was shot in Howth, which is one of the few places in Ireland that I’ve actually seen up close, or semi-up close, anyway; we passed it on the ferry on the way to Dublin, close enough to get a pretty good look at the houses dotting the landscape. With some costumes from the National Theatre of Ireland and a bus built in 1948, the video captures the bucolic beauty of bygone days and the exuberance of a first and lasting love.

The song reminds me of the Hollies’ Bus Stop, a 1966 hit written by 16-year-old Graham Gouldman. Both songs feature a bus stop as the site of blossoming love, with some help from a shared umbrella, and the tone is youthful and sincere. Much to my amusement, the song also happens to begin with a declaration of the time - 8:15. As any LOST fan knows, 815 is the number of the doomed flight that brought the castaways to the Island, and though I haven’t heard that Neil is a fan of the show, that particular time feels fatefully fitting in a song about a mode of transportation bringing people together.

Sadie Jones and I is my favorite track on the album because it’s just so infectiously fun. From the bouncy piano, accompanied by strings that add a hint of nostalgia, to Neil’s peppy vocals, this is one of those songs that just makes you feel glad to be alive. I can’t listen to it for more than about five seconds without a big grin creeping across my face. The fact that Neil wrote this with his father Edward makes it even more appealing, as it’s easy to imagine the senior Byrne as the earnest young suitor and Neil the product of the blissfully happy marriage. “It was 9:00, and the bus ain’t showin’, and all around the wind and rain is blowin’ free. But I calculate for time and weather, ‘cause underneath this fine umbrella stood Sadie and me.”

Raoul and Her Ladyship - Neil wrote this track with Nicole Hudson, who I assume is the same Nicole Hudson currently on tour with Celtic Thunder as a violinist. Accordingly, this track has a dense orchestral feel to it, along with layers of vocal harmony. There’s no video for this one yet, but if I had to venture a guess, the setting would take us even further back, a couple of centuries. I’m basing that primarily on the title, but there’s something courtly in the manner of the poetic speaker in this, the most flowery of the four songs. “Salute, bow our heads, turn to face the sun, knowing that this path is laid especially for us; it’s paved in gold.”

Truador - This is the only track on the album Neil wrote without any collaboration, and it’s the quietest of the songs, featuring just acoustic guitar and backing vocals. You can also watch a live performance of it on YouTube, where you have the added bonus of a Dublin backdrop, as he’s performing in front of a window several stories up at the Guinness Storehouse. While the first two tracks seem locked into a particular time, this one feels like a love song for the ages, and Neil has cleverly invented a word that I can see catching fire down the road. Merging the idea of a troubadour, a meandering singer of folk songs, with true adoration, he’s created the perfect verb to describe pouring out one’s love for another in the form of music. “You, my love, you should’ve been in my life from the start. I know you’ve opened up a new way to my heart. I’m sure that you’re the only one I truador.”

Cherish - The track that closes the album is the only cover on the EP. I work in a mall kiosk, and the original Madonna version of this song plays all the time; I wish they’d switch it out for Neil’s once in a while. Up until the chorus, his mellow rendition is scarcely recognizable, as he puts such a different spin on it. Piano and guitar provide the main instrumentation here, with occasional soft percussion and a dash of strings here and there. Neil does a lot of harmonizing with himself as well, especially on the chorus, and it all contributes to a song with a vastly different feel to it than the skating rink staple I grew up with. “Cherish the thought of always having you here by my side. Cherish the joy; you keep on bringing it into my life.”

If I didn’t know who Neil was and happened upon one of the songs from this EP in the absence of any visual cues, I probably wouldn’t guess that he was Irish; his Dublin accent virtually vanishes, and I suspect that at first listen, I would mistake him for an American. But whatever his nationality, I would realize that I was listening to a singer with a voice primed for pop music. I’m especially impressed with the way he exploits his upper register. As a songwriter, he demonstrates that Sensitive Souls is an ideal title for his first release, and I look forward to seeing what the future holds for this multi-talented musician.

Mostly Ghostly Is Mostly Cheesy

In late October, I watched Safe Haven, the Criminal Minds episode starring Sterling Beaumon as a teenage serial killer. Beaumon caught my attention back in 2007 when he first played young Benjamin Linus on LOST, and I was once again impressed with his acting abilities in this even darker role, but I found myself wishing I could see him playing a kid who didn’t have quite so many issues. I got my wish, sort of, when I stumbled upon Mostly Ghostly, a direct-to-DVD movie airing on the Disney Channel in which Beaumon stars as an aspiring magician who discovers that he can see and hear ghosts. Yeah, that’s a little weird, and he has to put up with bullying peers, an obnoxious brother and an overbearing dad who wishes he was more into sports, but Max Doyle is a pretty typical kid, and there’s nothing very unsettling about this movie.

Unless it’s maybe the fact that Beaumon agreed to be in it.

No, the movie isn’t that atrocious, but it certainly is not movie theater quality. This flick, based on the books by R. L. Stine and with a screenplay by Pat Proft and director Richard Correll, features some of the stupidest dialogue I’ve ever heard uttered in a movie, and everything about it, from the performances to the special effects, is hammy and over-the-top.

That means Beaumon, too, though at least I thought he made the most of opportunities for physical comedy with his expressive gestures and awkward gait. This movie came out in 2008, so I’m not sure whether it was filmed before or after LOST’s The Man Behind the Curtain, but the role of babbling, dorky Max definitely seems a step backward from the sullen, nearly silent Ben we saw in that episode. All the same, he is the most tolerable part of the movie.

Adam Hicks is the stereotypical lunk-headed older brother who reminded me very much of Buzz from the Home Alone movies. Everything he says seems to come a couple seconds too late; perhaps this is to emphasize that Colin is a little slow on the uptake, but it had the effect of making it seem like Hicks was always forgetting his lines and only recovering at the last minute.

Tara and Nicky, the two ghostly children who end up befriending Max, are played by Madison Pettis and Luke Benward. The latter generally just sort of fades into the background, while Pettis’s most notable trait is her impish giggle, along with her tendency to shriek. She also has a toothy grin that she flashes quite often. Tara is a cute and spunky kid, but a little of her goes a long way. Meanwhile, Brian Stepanek plays Phears, the ghoulish spook to whom Tara and Nicky represent a great threat. He’s vaguely menacing but far too cheesy to actually creep anyone out, except perhaps very young viewers. The moments in which he comes so close to the camera that he seems likely to burst through the TV screen are especially absurd.

Like so much typical Disney family fare, this movie involves a child struggling to be more popular and especially to earn the romantic regard of an attractive fellow student. On the home front, he mostly wishes that he could make his dad more appreciative of his interests. Plus, he’s caught up in a mystery that involves reuniting his new friends with their missing parents. The movie delivers some degree of resolution on all those fronts, though in true Stine fashion, the final frame gives us an indication that evil, in the form of Phears, has not been wholly eradicated.

Mostly Ghostly is a movie to watch if you’re in the mood for something incredibly goofy. I always thought of Stine as pretty spooky, but this most definitely isn’t, and it’s written in such a way that every word out of every mouth sounds totally unnatural. Even if there had been more genuinely scary elements here, I think I would have been too distracted by the bad dialogue to notice. And I was on the verge of throwing the remote at the TV if I had to hear that dumb rhyme Max recites ad nauseam throughout the movie one more time. So while it’s good to know that Beaumon’s career has allowed him the occasional reprieve from playing such deeply tormented characters, Mostly Ghostly is nothing to boast about.

Elizabeth Mitchell Plays Double-Agent With Extra-Terrestrial Others in V

Last year, ABC introduced two series meant to vie for the attention of the LOST-loving crowd. That wasn’t their only purpose, certainly, but the network marketed them in such a way as to make them as appealing to that demographic as possible. Along with large casts, sci-fi elements and overlapping themes, each boasted at least one actor who played a major role on LOST. Flashforward had the edge in that department with Sonya Walger and Dom Monaghan, best known to LOSTies as roving Scotsman Desmond’s lost love Penny Widmore and burnout rocker-turned-hero Charlie Pace, plus a brief appearance by Kim Dickens, who played Sawyer’s ex-flame Cassidy Phillips, but V boasted Elizabeth Mitchell, who portrayed fertility doctor Juliet Burke, defector from the Others.

Mitchell plays Agent Erica Evans, the show’s central character. A tough but compassionate woman, she finds herself in a prickly position as her job requires her to work with the extraterrestrial entities who have introduced themselves as “the Visitors,” but in secret, she is one of the key leaders in an underground movement to plot against them. She doesn’t trust these seemingly benevolent aliens, and she has good reasons for her stance. But while she works tirelessly to expose their nefarious nature, her teenage son Tyler (Logan Huffman) is falling head over heels for Lisa (Laura Vandervoort), the gorgeous daughter of the Visitors’ leader, Anna (Morena Baccarin), complicating matters considerably.

V began airing after Flashforward, and my first impression of it was that I much preferred the pilot, which drew me into the action immediately and gave me a pretty good sense of the key characters. I also thought that the pilot episode had more humanity and levity than Flashforward’s did. On the other hand, I found both series to be pretty dark, and V just kept getting darker as the season progressed. While Flashforward’s primary point of similarity with LOST is its emphasis on the question of whether people are guided by fate or free will, in V, it’s the whole notion of Otherness, of Us vs Them.

On LOST, I always had the sense that despite all of the ugly confrontations between various factions that were foreign to each other, they would ultimately find themselves on the same side of things. On V, this outcome seems a lot less likely. The conflict feels much more black and white: humans good, Visitors bad, even though most of the world, by the end of the first season, still sees the Visitors in a very positive light. However, I suppose it is possible that a majority of the Visitors could end up eventually sympathizing with the humans and defecting, so that there would still be a conflict but it would mostly be about taking down one mega-villain and her closest associates instead of an entire civilization. I never watched the original series, but I get the idea that there’s not a lot of similarity between the two, so I doubt that familiarizing myself with that will give me many clues as to how creator Kenneth Johnson will proceed.

Unlike Flashforward, V survived its first season, which I think is due in part to the fact that it’s much easier to tell what exactly is going on. There are no flashforwards, while flashbacks are rare and always clearly connected to the action at hand. There are a number of major characters, but they’re all pretty closely connected, so we don’t have half a dozen distinct stories going on at once. While Flashforward presents a very puzzling mystery and only begins to drop any real hints as to its true nature about halfway through the season, V lets us know right off the bat what the true nature of these Visitors is, so there’s not so much opportunity for viewers’ patience to get tested.

The relationship between Erica and Tyler is compelling, and the presence of him and Lisa makes the show more appealing to teenagers. And while Flashforward included only a couple of cursory nods to how the global blackout affected religious communities and people of faith, that question is central to V, thanks largely to a rugged priest named Jack Landry (Joel Gretsch). Deeply committed to his beliefs, he joins the revolutionaries but is always the first to raise an objection when they find themselves getting into murky ethical territory. Jack is my favorite of the characters, and I enjoy his rapport with Erica; I would be pleasantly surprised if the show allowed their friendship to deepen without getting into physical territory.

With most of the characters, we have a pretty decent idea of where they’re coming from. The two biggest wild cards throughout the first season are Lisa, who is seducing Tyler on her mother’s orders but who seems as though she could be genuinely falling in love with him, and Chad Decker (Scott Wolf), a self-serving journalist who becomes the Visitors’ primary liaison in the media. Just as we aren’t sure where these characters stand, it seems likely that they don’t know themselves, so they are especially fascinating to watch. I was particularly drawn to Lisa because Vandervoort plays Clark’s cousin Kara on Smallville, which is a role that similarly calls for both sweetness and duplicity.

Meanwhile, the standout role is Anna, to whom Baccarin brings a soothing but unsettling aura. Under all that attractive human skin, the Vs actually resemble lizards, and Anna has this eerie manner of reflecting that make-up, particularly in the way that she blinks. She comes across as incredibly empathetic and maternal, but behind closed doors, we see the atrocities of which she is capable. Most of the truly horrific scenes in the series involve her in some way, and at times, they are quite graphic. While I’m looking forward to its return in a couple of months, I confess that V does sometimes make me feel a bit squeamish, and if the second season takes the violence up a notch, I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to stick with it. In its first twelve episodes, the series spreads the more gruesome stuff around enough that it’s not pervasive, but the season ends on an ominous note that suggests the worst is yet to come.

Like Flashforward, V is hardly a show that has captured my imagination as thoroughly as LOST, but it’s fairly well-crafted, with interesting characters, a great cast and some pretty convincing special effects. When the Visitors return to screens across America in January, I’ll be watching.