Elizabeth Spurr

A big collection of eighteen bland Christmas stories featuring dozens of Disney characters. One story stars Winnie the Pooh, so I'm counting it as part of my Pooh Project, but I was surprised that my favorite stories in the book are about Mickey Mouse and Pinocchio.

101 Dalmatians: A Christmas For-Giving - 2 stars
Excited about their first Christmas, 99 naughty puppies start unwrapping all the presents under the Christmas tree and wonder what they're supposed to do with neckties and handkerchiefs. Are 99 lumps of coal in their near future?

Cinderella: A Merry Christmas for Mice - 2 stars
Home alone for Christmas Eve as her stepmother and stepsisters go to a lavish Christmas celebration in the country, Cinderella is despondent. But the mice decide they can have their own Christmas with Cinderella using scraps scrounged from around the house, because Christmas is really about friendship anyway.

Oliver And Company: Christmas Is For Friends - 2 stars
With her parents out of town and her little cat feeling lonely, little rich girl Jenny Foxworth invites over Oliver's friends from the streets: Fagin, Dodger, Rita, Einstein, Francis and Tito. Amidst Christmas cheer, presents are exchanged, and classism and inequality are sidestepped.

The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Christmas Under The Sea - 2 stars
A loose adaptation of the 1991 Read-Along story of the same name originally written by Paula Sigman.
Envious of the Christmas lights she sees decorating the castle on shore, Ariel tries to bring the human traditions to her aquatic family. Understandably, she has some problems lighting the candles on her Christmas tree.

The Aristocats: An Aristocat-ic Christmas - 2 stars
For Thomas O'Malley, all the Christmas celebrations at Madame Bonfamille's mansion are incomplete until he can help his less fortunate friends, the Alley Cats, crash the feast.

Bambi: The Wonderful Winter Tree - 2 stars
Animals are Christian? A Bambi story seems an odd place to have the first reference to Santa Claus and an appearance of the Star of Bethlehem. Up till that weirdness, I was liking the story of the deer and other animals foraging for scraps of food under the snow. Why couldn't the wondrous Christmas tree hung with berries, popcorn, and apples that they come across have been provided by some regular Christian folks who just care about wildlife?

Dumbo: The Best Christmas - 2 stars
It's Dumbo's first Christmas, so Timothy Q. Mouse and the crows give him a tutorial about Santa, trees, and presents. Once again, the story touches on the haves and the have-nots and emphasizes charitable giving to the poor.

Beauty And The Beast: The Enchanted Christmas - 1 star
Adapted from 1997 direct-to-video film directed by Andy Knight and written by Flip Kobler, Cindy Marcus, Bill Motz, and Bob Roth.
Belle wants to throw a Christmas celebration over the objections of the Beast and despite the machinations of an evil organ -- and no, I'm not talking about the Beast's penis! But maybe if it were about the Beast's penis this wouldn't be so bad . . .

A Bug's Life: Flik's Christmas Invention - 2 stars
Flik tries to invent a machine to speed up gift wrapping to predictably awful results.

Lady And The Tramp: Lady's Christmas Surprise - 2 stars
Tramp and the puppies go shopping for a Christmas present for Lady. Everyone expects Tramp to steal something because of his past and lower class ways, but an unlikely series of events makes it unnecessary, though he has to spend the rest of the story repeatedly proving he's not a thief. I'm reminded of stories told by Black people of how they have to keep receipts handy for display when out shopping.

Mickey Mouse: Mickey's Christmas Carol - 3 stars
Adapted from 1983 film directed by Burny Mattinson and written by Burny Mattinson, Tony L. Marino, Ed Gombert, Don Griffith, Alan Young, and Alan Dinehart
It's hard to go wrong with a straightforward adaptation of a Dickens' classic, even if it stars Mickey Mouse. Uncle Scrooge McDuck is perfect, of course, as he comes full circle to play the character who was an inspiration for his creation.

Pinocchio: Pinocchio's Perfect Gift - 4 stars
For his first Christmas as a real boy, Pinocchio is having trouble finding the perfect gift for Geppetto. When time runs out Jiminy Cricket talks him into giving a cheesy handwritten coupon, but when the Blue Fairy offers a wish, Pinocchio is able to get Geppetto what he really wants and OMG it is so WTF demented: a recreation of the original Pinocchio puppet that Geppetto proceeds to dance around in merry fashion. Genius!

Winnie The Pooh: Pooh's Jingle Bells - 2 stars
Adapted from My Very First Winnie the Pooh: Pooh's Jingle Bells by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld and Robbin Cuddy.
This take does nothing to improve on the original. Christopher Robin makes Pooh feel guilty about wanting presents for Christmas, so Pooh decides they should get in the Christmas spirit by helping Santa Claus deliver presents. They circle around the Hundred-Acre Wood gathering friends and supplies for the effort, but accomplish little except pressuring a dubious Eeyore into pulling everyone around in a sleigh while they sing. Ho-ho-ho-my-god!

The Hunchback Of Notre Dame: Christmas In The Bell Tower - 2 stars
Quasimodo frets that Esmeralda is blowing him off on Christmas Eve, but his gargoyle friends distract him by encouraging him to decorate his belfry on his own. The not surprising surprise ending just fizzles.

Tarzan: Christmas In The Jungle - 2 stars
Jane Porter and her father have to educate Tarzan about Christmas. No mention is made of Jesus, but the animals go all Isaiah 11:6 once a Christmas tree is introduced to the jungle and a star appears in the sky. More religious animals! More religious than Tarzan, at least.

Robin Hood: Christmas For Everyone - 2 stars
Robin Hood's Merry Men cannot enjoy Christmas until they've had a chance to steal from the rich Sheriff of Nottingham and give to the poor. Thievery, charity or redistribution of wealth?

Snow White: A Christmas To Remember - 2 stars
The Seven Dwarfs make a surprise gift for Snow White while she surprises them by putting up Christmas decorations and baking cookies. Hi-ho-hum.

Toy Story: Andy's Christmas Puppy - 2 stars
The story picks up from the final moments of the first Toy Story move, showing how Woody and the gang cope with the introduction of Andy's new puppy, Buster. Par for the course, their initial plan is xenophobic, paranoid, and evil. I like the Toy Story movies, but, man, they are some bad toys.

FOR REFERENCE:

Contents: (All stories written by Elizabeth Spurr)
• 101 Dalmatians: A Christmas For-Giving / DRI Artworks, illustrators
• Cinderella: A Merry Christmas for Mice / DRI Artworks, illustrators
• Oliver And Company: Christmas Is For Friends / DRI Artworks, illustrators
• The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Christmas Under The Sea / DRI Artworks, illustrators (Adapted from the Read-Along book by Paula Sigman)
• The Aristocats: An Aristocat-ic Christmas / DRI Artworks, illustrators
• Bambi: The Wonderful Winter Tree / DRI Artworks, illustrators
• Dumbo: The Best Christmas / DRI Artworks, illustrators
• Beauty And The Beast: The Enchanted Christmas / DRI Artworks, illustrators (Adapted from the 1997 film directed by Andy Knight and written by Flip Kobler, Cindy Marcus, Bill Motz, and Bob Roth.)
• A Bug's Life: Flik's Christmas Invention / Gita Lloyd, penciler; Eric Binder, painter
• Lady And The Tramp: Lady's Christmas Surprise / Francesc Mateu, illustrator
• Mickey Mouse: Mickey's Christmas Carol (Adapted from 1983 film directed by Burny Mattinson and written by Burny Mattinson, Tony L. Marino, Ed Gombert, Don Griffith, Alan Young, and Alan Dinehart)
• Pinocchio: Pinocchio's Perfect Gift / Orlando de la Paz, penciler; Eric Binder, painter
• Winnie The Pooh: Pooh's Jingle Bells / Josie Yee, illustrator (Adapted from My Very First Winnie the Pooh: Pooh's Jingle Bells by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld and Robbin Cuddy)
• The Hunchback Of Notre Dame: Christmas In The Bell Tower / Mark Marderosian, penciler; Eva Lopez, painter
• Tarzan: Christmas In The Jungle / Jose Maria Cardona, illustrator
• Robin Hood: Christmas For Everyone / Barcelona Studio, illustrators
• Snow White: A Christmas To Remember / Fernando Guell, penciler; Fred Marvin, painter
• Toy Story: Andy's Christmas Puppy / Mark Marderosian, penciler; Tom La Padula

(My Pooh Project: I love Winnie the Pooh, and so does my wife. Having a daughter gave us a chance to indoctrinate her into the cult by buying and reading her every Pooh book we came across. How many is that? I’m going to count them this year by reading and reviewing one every day and seeing which month I finally run out. Track my progress here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/23954351-rod-brown?ref=nav_mybooks&she... )… (more)

When a plump pumpkin rolls down hill in this seasonal picture-book, smashing and dispersing its seeds, that particularly steep slope becomes a prolific pumpkin patch. Each year the farmer and his wife argue about what to plant, and each year the pumpkins sprout, and grow more abundant. Then one day the pumpkins all begin to roll down hill toward the nearby town, starting a pumpkin avalanche no one will ever forget...

After enjoying Elizabeth Spurr's Halloween Sky Ride, I felt sure I would appreciate Pumpkin Hill, which has a similar autumn setting, and also (at the end) addresses Halloween. Unfortunately, although I did like the story idea - a pumpkin avalanche that must be turned into jack-o-lanterns and pumpkin pies! - and the accompanying artwork from Whitney Martin was colorful and humorous, somehow the narrative here just left me indifferent. I didn't care for the way it alternated between rhyming and non rhyming text, and I found it difficult to suspend my disbelief, when it came to the hillside not being planted with a crop for three years, because the farming couple couldn't agree. Tastes vary of course, and there's nothing really wrong here, so picture-book readers in the market for autumnal and/or Halloween stories might want to give this one a look.… (more)