Eloise at Christmastime (by Kay Thompson)

It's Christmas Eve, and Eloise's excitement runs high; she leaps and jingles through the Plaza Hotel. She sings carols on every floor and jumps down the hall in a Christmas stocking. She helps Nanny "candy the apples" and trim the tree and wrap presents. Her mother calls from the Caribbean, and then it's time for bed. Eloise has a dream of hot plum pudding with "extra cream cream cream." At dawn on Christmas morning, wrapping paper flies as she and Nanny  open presents. Eloise receives a diamond necklace, and her friend the pigeon gives birth.

In the last decades of Kay Thompson's life, she refused to allow ELOISE AT CHRISTMASTIME to remain in print. After her death, the publishers reissued it (with four new pages), but it isn't quite up to the greatness of the original. Written in rhyme, it squashes one of the greatest joys of Eloise: her breathless talk-talk-talk. Although asides in red add to the fun, such as, "Sometimes there is so much to do that/ I get sort of a headache around the sides and partially under it."

Fans know Eloise's mother is famous and busy, but her absence at Christmas, of all times, is more disturbing. And it seems out of character for Eloise to admit that perhaps she hasn't been good enough during the year to deserve presents. The cartoon-like black, white, and red drawings by Hilary Knight are what hold the book together: Kids find endless details to delight them, although even 8-year-olds may become impatient to turn the page to see what's next during the long-winded verse.