The Horn Book Guide

PICTURE BOOKS

Spurr, Elizabeth, Adapter

The Peterkins' Christmas

40 pp. | Atheneum | October, 2004 | Trade ISBN 0-689-83023-8 $16.95

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Wendy Anderson Halperin. Though this picture book adaptation of two stories from Lucretia Hale's classic 1886 Peterkin Papers is less than smooth (the stories are poorly integrated, and excerpts from manufactured letters to the lady from Philadelphia are distractingly interspersed throughout the text), the book is so attractive that readers may not notice. Halperin's delicate, cheerful watercolors perfectly suit the old-fashioned tone of the humorous stories.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2004