Holiday Books, Year's Best, and So On

• Looking for a present? See the holiday gift guide, at NPR.   
• The author Esmé Raji Codell names her 2005 recommendations on her web site, Planet Esmé. Adults may know Codell for the excellent compendium How to Get Your Child to Love Reading while children may recognize her Sahara Special and Sing a Song of Tuna Fish.
• Susan Faust considers Codell's latest, Hanukkah Schmanukkah, in a San Francisco Chronicle review called "Converting Yule Classics for Hanukkah," but Lesléa Newman's The Eight Nights of Chanukah fares better. Last weekend, the Chronicle chose its gift books for children, among them Allen Say's picture book Kamishibai Man; it's being lauded left and right.

That may be it for me with the holiday gift guides. All the newspapers and magazines will be publishing them. I'm really not that big on buying Christmas-themed books; the kids' section at the local Super Duper Chain Bookstore, currently bursting with such confections, contributes to my unease with this season's too-muchness. Why, yesterday one of those pop-up books even reached out and swatted me with a peppermint stick.

Comments

[Kelly]

I'm with you on this one, Susan. But, then again, I'm a bit of a grinch when it comes to the holiday season. January is my favorite month. Five birthdays, Thanksgiving, three anniversaries, and New Years (Russian side) make November-December-January 5 a bit hard to bear.