Santa's Secret

September 1, 2019
Can an inquisitive child find the real Santa? Rhyming, first-person text follows a child to the city with the family for some holiday fun. They appear white in the cartoon illustrations, with peachy skin and straight, auburn hair (though Grandma's coif is gray and wavy). When Santa goes by during a parade, he has light-brown skin and round, gold-rimmed glasses. On the facing page, the narrator is surprised to see another Santa with lighter skin and square, black-framed glasses. Puzzled, the child narrates, "I demanded to know: 'Who is the REAL one?!' " Grandma tells her, "It's Santa's secret, just as it should be," but the child decides to investigate. Most of the sleuthing occurs while visiting Santa in a store where he's taking photos with children. The determined kid whips out a notepad and grills him. This patient, white Santa looks different from the others, rather like he's stepped out of "A Visit From St. Nicholas." Then, while getting hot cocoa in a coffee shop, the child spies another (white) Santa look-alike (minus the red suit). Before the narrator can ask anything, he says, " 'Reindeer like barley and berries to eat. / But carrots, ' he added 'are their favorite treat.' " Then suddenly, he's gone! This encounter somehow leaves the narrator satisfied with not knowing who the REAL Santa is, but the non-ending may leave readers cold. Ho-ho-hum. (Picture book. 3-6)

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October 7, 2019
A sharp-eyed young sleuth urgently seeks the real Santa among several Christmas season helpers in this energetic picture book. Alarmed that a sidewalk Santa ringing a bell and collecting donations looks different from the one riding the sleigh in the city’s Christmas parade, a girl takes her turn sitting on the lap of yet a third Santa to grill him with questions (“How big is your workshop and how many elves?/ Do they live with you or all by themselves?”). Not completely satisfied with what she’s learned so far, a stop at a nearby coffee shop with her family provides the girl with the kind of magic that satisfies her curiosity, shores up her belief, and gives her a marvelous secret of her own to keep. Melmon’s cheerily busy city scenes and close-ups of the intrepid bespectacled narrator have a comic flavor that matches the pulse of Brennan-Nelson’s rhymes. Ages 6–7.