If Jim Carrey says it's Christmas now, who are we to argue?

While we've already given you our choice of the best holiday-themed books of the season, Deborah Stevenson and her elves at BCCB offer a handy handout of more than three hundred recent titles suitable for gift-giving. Deborah and I both learned our trade from Zena Sutherland and Betsy Hearne, so you know she has excellent taste. Too.

Why Such a Lonely Beach?

The new issue of the Magazine is out (with a cover by Lane Smith that makes me want to watch Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol immediately). You can see the table of contents with links to selected reviews (holiday books!) and articles (fan fiction!) right over here.

From Cape Cod to Christmas

My mini-break at the Cape was lovely for all kinds of reasons, most notably the best ice cream I've had in a long time, at Four Seas in Centerville. I tried the chocolate, peppermint, peach and butter crunch--all sublime. Closes September 13th for the winter so hurry on down. Richard and I stayed just a block away at the Long Dell Inn, which went a long way in alleviating my suspicions of the term bed and breakfast. Nice bed, great breakfast, friendly innkeepers. Kept myself occupied each morning at the beach with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo while Richard one-upped me with Midnight's Children.

Oh yes, work: the writers' conference afforded me (and the attendees, I hope) a great six-hour discussion with Mary Lee Donovan, Debbie Kovacs, Alison Morris, Nancy Werlin and Martin Sandler about contemporary children's publishing, from the nitty-gritty of getting an agent to larger questions about the future of the market. Everybody seemed to think that we were not seeing enough picture books (the form, Mary Lee suggested, most likely to survive as printed book) and perhaps too much YA. Nancy wisely advised the audience to cover its ears when we moaned about the current depressing economic situation--since you need to write the book you need to write anyway, she said, discouraging words can only harm.

And I finally got to meet Mitali Perkins. Yup, she's tall.

Now the Christmas books are calling--I have to go write a review of Jim Murphy's forthcoming Truce, about the sadly ephemeral Christmas peace on the Western Front in 1914, for our Holiday Books feature. Ho-ho-ho.

Christmas koan

If the tree tilts toward the room, can we see it? Shall we fear it?

Monday catch-up

--Claire has a new booklist of fairy tales up on our site.

--Cynsations interviews my pal Cathie Mercier, director of the terrific Simmons College Center for the Study of Children's Literature, which includes among its founders Horn Book editors Paul and Ethel Heins, and for which I will be leading a seminar next summer.

--Mother Reader offers sixty-some suggestions for book-allied presents, like pairing a copy of Abe Lincoln Crosses a Creek with a set of Lincoln Logs. If Santa is listening, I'll take a copy of A Little Princess coupled with a secret midnight feast delivered by a dark and handsome stranger.

Dasher, Dancer, Dunder and Jesus

More Christmas sadness--"Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" got temporarily yanked for its "religious overtones." (That must be the Mongolian throat-singing version.)

If you need a good Christmas cry

Dutch Courage?

I mentioned over on Facebook showing one of my favorite Christmas movies, The Snowman, based on Raymond Briggs's book, to the little Dutch kids from downstairs. One is two and the other four and they both seem to enjoy the film (or maybe it's just that hypno-glaze the Snowman himself demonstrates when he watches TV for the first time). But Elizabeth said, "But the snowman dies! Were the kids ok? I've heard that used as the 'difference between Americans and Europeans' argument. We have Frosty, who comes back to life. Their snowman dies."

They seemed okay--when the boy in the movie opens the door into the sunny morning to greet his friend, the four-year-old said "he melted." She also said "it was all a dream," so maybe she's just a realist by nature. I'm guessing she doesn't understand enough about death to see melting as possibly analogous.  Has anyone else experience with sharing this movie with young kids?

November/December Horn Book Magazine

The new issue is wending its way to your mailbox and we've posted selected excerpts online, including a three-way take on e-books and our annual list of the best holiday books. Does this mean I can finally start listening to Christmas carols?

Merry Christmas Darlings

Hey, I finally made it.

I hope everyone gets some nice uninterrupted recreational reading time over the holidays. I've started my own off with The Exception by Christian Jungersen (Talese/Doubleday), a hugely engrossing mystery/thriller/black comedy (I think) about the employees of a Danish genocide documentation center. The women who work there have been receiving threatening emails and they're all a little bit crazy already, especially Anne-Lise, the center's librarian who thinks the others are Out to Get Her. And they May Be.

To follow up I have some Sarah Waters, Denise Mina, James Lee Burke . . . it's going to be good times in P-town this week.

As Betty and Wilma say, "CHARGE!"

Children's Book Shop proprietress Terri Schmitz talks with Kitty Flynn about children's-book shopping for the holidays and recommending some of her favorites on our latest podcast.

I'll be over soon, Terri. We've got this swell Dutch couple renting our first floor apt and they have two completely adorable kids--a one year old boy and a three year old girl. Richard and I feel like we've acquired grandchildren and are spoiling them appropriately. The little girl, of course, initially spoke no English, and she would talk away at us in Dutch, too young to understand that we couldn't understand her. But then she and I had our Patty Duke--Anne Bancroft moment. She was talking to me in Dutch and clearly had an important question. I saw this little light go on in her eyes and she blurted, "Wheah's Wichawd?" Thanks, kid-- but spoken like a born Bostonian.

The Nov/Dec 2007 Horn Book Magazine

is out and we've posted some selections on our website along with a nifty bunch of web extras (who knew Astrid Lindgren could be such a . . . oh, go look for yourself and fill in the blank).

And that Christmassy cover of Olivia is giving me complete permission to ramp up the carols on Miss Pod. A great way to get into the seasonal spirit: try singing "O Little Town of Bethlehem" to the tune of "The House of the Rising Sun."