Song and celebrations
THE LUMP OF COAL
Written by Lemony Snicket
Illustrated by Brett Helquist
HarperCollins, 40 pp., ages 4-8, $12.99
ONE HUNDRED SHINING CANDLES
Written by Janet Lunn
Illustrated by Lindsay Grater
Tundra, 32 pp., ages 6-10, $17.95
AMANDINA
By Sergio Ruzzier
Roaring Brook, 32 pp., ages 4 and up, $16.95
NIGHT OF THE MOON:A Muslim Holiday Story
Written by Hena Khan
Illustrated by Julie Paschkis
Chronicle, 32 pp., ages 5-9, $16.99
Fans of Lemony Snicket's great "Series of Unfortunate Events" books may feel disappointed by his newest offering, "The Lump of Coal." As holiday books go, it is as dark and dreary as one might imagine, and stars a sentient lump of coal "who for the sake of argument could think, talk, and move itself around. Like many people who dress in black, the lump of coal was interested in becoming an artist."
Featured here as well are Mr. Wong's Korean Barbecue Palace & Secretarial School, a few familiar villains, and "an overweight man with a long, white beard, dressed in a very bright red suit." But despite moments of charm and wit - and a truly valiant bit of illustrating by Brett Helquist, especially in portraying the lump itself - this slight book remains better as stocking filler than as literature. There's not much plot, and not very much else. My review copy came with a delicious black lump of coal-like candy; as a book-and-candy package deal, I'd recommend it, but if I had to choose one, I'd go for the sweeter of the two items.
Janet Lunn's "One Hundred Shining Candles" depicts the cold dark woods of upper Canada in the year 1800, with brilliance to spare. Lindsay Grater's artwork perfectly suits the story, in soft, lovely cherry reds and midnight blues. Lucy yearns to delight her careworn mother and father at Christmas, and decides to make as many candles as she can, using the red madder dye that was to have colored a new dress for her that spring. Grudgingly she lets her little brother, Dan, in on the plot - which turns out to be her smartest decision.
"One Hundred Shining Candles" sparkles with that brand of homely genius that has made the "Little House on the Prairie" books loved for generations. Its families suffer real hardships; the children make real mistakes, and feel keen joys from simple pleasures. One could easily read a dozen more stories about this backwoods family with "no money to spare, with Ma so sick and Pa so worried." White bread for Christmas is the family's single great luxury, never mind tales of 100 candles, red silk ribbons, and roast goose. Like all children's Christmas classics, "One Hundred Shining Candles" is all about self-sacrifice, affection, pleasure in simplicity, and gratitude for small comforts. That's not a message to overlook this season.
"Amandina," by Italian author-artist Sergio Ruzzier, is about a different kind of gift-giving - the gift to and from the self, the gift of art to a community. Amandina, the homely little-dog heroine, has the soul of an artist. "Amandina was a wonderful little dog: she could dance, and sing, and act beautifully, and perform the most daring acrobatics. But nobody knew that, because nobody knew Amandina. That evening, she promised herself that she would stop being so shy. And so, she decided to give a great performance and invite everyone."
We all have our retiring Amandinas. This one rents out a run-down theater, builds the sets, designs the props, and puts up posters, but when the curtain rises, "the theater was empty: nobody had come." And Amandina, that brave trouper, performs anyway, including a comic prologue. Hidden in one of the front seats is "a little cockroach who was wandering around with no plans for the evening." Well, great theatrical reputations have been built on less. Soon Amandina has a theater full of new fans. So will this book. Ruzzier's art and artistry are distinctly Italian, roughly midway between comme dia dell'arte and Punch and Judy. "Amandina" is thrillingly odd, and oddly haunting. It would make as beautiful a gift for an 81-year-old as for an 8-year-old, for the art of giving and receiving deep gifts is ageless and timeless.
Hena Khan's "NIGHT OF THE MOON," glowingly illustrated by Julie Paschkis, provides a welcome and much-needed new Muslim children's picture book. Yasmeen has been looking forward to Ramadan, heralded by a new lunar month in the Islamic calendar. Children don't fast, but Yasmeen's mother and father refrain from eating or drinking from sunup to sunset for a full month, breaking the long fast with traditional fresh dates and milk. Yasmeen's mother explains, "Fasting helps me remember to be grateful for the food I have and to be more patient."
Ramadan is also a month of family get-togethers, prayer, parties, sharing with the poor, and feasting at night. As the moon moves from a thin line to a half-circle to a full "brilliant circle" and then disappears, Yasmeen celebrates with the people she loves, eagerly waiting for the Night of the Moon celebration that marks Ramadan's end. Yasmeen even has her hands painted with red henna paste "in a beautiful pattern with moons and stars." Nearly every religion has a holiday that closely watches the darkness and celebrates the return of light - in this, all cultures share something precious and elemental, like "a glimpse of the moon's first crescent," at first "so thin it was like a faint line of chalk in the sky." On such frail beginnings are lasting understandings built.
Liz Rosenberg reviews children’s books monthly for the Globe. 