cover image Christmas Delicious

Christmas Delicious

Lyn Loates, illus. by Mark Jones, Blue Apple (Chronicle, dist.), $16.99 (40p) ISBN 978-1-60905-049-8

In this warm and festive story, Raisin and Rice, two mice who live at Zanzibar's Deli, prepare a sumptuous Christmas feast. After making a long grocery list, baking pies, cookies, and cakes, and decorating an enormous tree, they realize on Christmas morning that something is missing ("With goodies galore,/ how did we ignore/ What should be at the top of the list?") and quickly invite their friends. Jones's tender images of the dapper mice and their miniature world and Loates's buoyant verse make this a cozy, curling-up-with-family read. Ages 3–7. (Sept.)