The Night Before Christmas, illustrated by Jean Hirashima.

Clement C. Moore's famous Christmas poem, first published in 1823, is here presented as a small paperback picture-book, with the artwork of illustrator Jean Hirashima. The narrator describes a visit from St. Nicholas - the poem's original title was, in fact, A Visit from St. Nicholas - who arrives on a sleigh drawn by reindeer, comes down the chimney with his gifts, and departs again with jolly wishes for a Happy Christmas...

The full version of the poem is used in this edition of The Night Before Christmas, including the original verse in which the narrator and his wife had just "settled our brains for a long winter's nap." This took me aback, as I am more used to the current (and more popular) version, which reads: "settled down for a long winter's nap." In point of fact, until picking up this picture-book, I had no idea that I had, all my life, been reading an altered version of the poem. Apparently this original version, complete with brains, is in keeping with the poetic meter of the piece - anapestic tetrameter - while the altered verse does not scan as well. I'll trust the experts on that one, and confine myself to observing that, although almost always on the side of sticking to the full and original version of any story or poem, in this case I'm perfectly happy to ignore the existence of a "brainy" Night Before Christmas! I simply won't ever be using that version, as it feels utterly absurd to me to read or speak the line "settled our brains."

Leaving aside these textual questions, I also wasn't terribly impressed by Hirashima's artwork here, which was colorful and even cute at times, but also often felt very flat to me. There's nothing really wrong with it, exactly, and I imagine some readers will enjoy it, but it felt almost computer-generated at times, and not in a good way. This is one that I would primarily recommend to readers specifically look for the original version of the poem, the version with brain-settling. ( )