A Christmas Carol

All the key elements of Dickens’s seasonal ghost story remain intact in this skillful adaptation. McKeown (the Young Reader’s Shakespeare series) streamlines the story while remaining true to the language and eerie aspects of the original. “Jacob Marley was as dead as a doornail,” he begins; of Scrooge, he writes, “If he had a heart, it was frozen solid.” McKeown moves briskly through Scrooge’s Christmas Eve visitations from the spirit of his former partner, as well as those who show him the joy and pain of his past, the error of his present greedy ways, and a grim potential future. Kelley, too, is unafraid to embrace the story’s spooky elements—Marley’s ghost charges into Scrooge’s room in an unholy burst of blue-white light, while the hood of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come offers the hint of a gleaming skull. Ages 4–8. Illustrator’s agency: Bright Agency. (Oct.)