Milo's Christmas Parade

September 1, 2020
An opossum with a love for Christmas hoopla realizes a lifelong dream. Milo's family likes the Christmas parade for all the goodies spectators drop: popcorn, nuts, candy. Milo loves the parade for its spectacle. It just so happens that Milo and his passel live near the building where the balloons and floats for the parade are designed and built. Inexplicably (to Milo), every year he is overlooked for inclusion in the parade, so finally he decides to make his dream come true himself. With a little help from his passel, he works all year long to design and build a float with a giant skiing opossum on it, to be drawn by loyal members of his passel. When the float collides with a balloon handler's rope and is destroyed, Milo is devastated--but his passel comes through to jury-rig a new float. Racing to catch up with the parade, they come across Santa's float, which has encountered problems of its own, and Santa and Milo ride to triumph together on Milo's float. This quirky story features a decidedly unusual protagonist, but it meanders. Palmer's line-and-color cartoons are frequently hard to parse, unable to fully shoulder the narrative load left by openings in the sparse, wry text. Occasional footnotes offer some explanation but not enough to carry readers seamlessly through the story. Santa presents White; other parade workers and participants are diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally with 8.5-by-21-inch double-page spreads viewed at 68.6% of actual size.) Doesn't quite make it despite an abundance of enthusiasm. (Picture book. 5-8)

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September 21, 2020
Palmer, who has designed and built floats and balloons for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, imbues her hero, a scrappy little opossum, with similar aspirations in this festive tale. This year, Milo decides to “take matters into his own paws” and realize his dream of joining the Christmas parade. In bustling mixed-media illustrations that incorporate diverting details, the author-illustrator shows Milo, assisted by his familial passel of possums, determinedly building a float bed (tail wrapped around tools) and trimming his costume (a pincushion perched on his head). On parade day, his float is upended when it gets caught in ropes tethering a helium balloon, but Milo springs back into action, on the fly constructing a sturdier, sleeker model that “rocketed down the road on pure passel power.” Meshing Christmas, parade, and animal themes, Palmer gives triple kid appeal to her festively hued story, which culminates in well-deserved triumph for Milo. Ages 4–8.