The Christmas Visitors

Hayes follows The Winter Visitors and The Summer Visitors with a third story of a gentle ursine takeover of a cottage that’s been closed up for the season by its owners. But when the family decides to celebrate the holidays in the cottage after all, the bears must skedaddle. In a nod to “The Night Before Christmas” one of the children catches the bears leaving a decorative surprise for the family on Christmas Eve night. Hayes’s spare writing can, at times, be inscrutable (“Merry holidays,/ twinkling lights,/ and starlit skies;/ all go round and round/ and off to bed”), though the watercolor scenes of ice skating families (both human and bear) and holiday celebrations are fun and festive. Ages 4–8. (Sept.)