TONIGHT IS KRAMPUS NIGHT!, lovely illustrations of scary story for kids

TONIGHT IS KRAMPUS NIGHT!
KYLE SULLIVAN (illus. Zoe Persico)
Hazy Dell Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$17.95 hardcover, $9.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Better watch out! Something delightfully dreadful lurks in the shadows cast by holiday lights.

From Alpine Austrian and German folklore, Krampusnacht (Krampus Night) is when the Krampus—a horned and hooved Yuletide beast—clomps door-to-door to carry away naughty children in his basket. In this beautifully illustrated ode to old European holiday tradition, a little boy named Felix awaits a visit from the Krampus and a festively frightful cast of characters from folklore, including the Yule Cat, Marley’s Ghost, Mari Lwyd, and Frau Perchta.

Includes a glossary of winter folklore characters.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: How German...no unalloyed happiness allowed! you must always feel the hot breath of some kind of Devil or you're at risk of disorderly behavior!...that is Verboten:

...but honestly, to my materialist soul, there's nothing quite so silly-cute as a dude with ram's horns on his head running around being all scary. I get a huge laugh out of it.

Wagnerian presentation and all, isn't he just the cutest?

The ghosties and the ghoulies are cute, too. I love the daffiness of mis-syncretized myths like this. Imagine believing in christian mythology of love and peace and all that...then scaring your kids into submission with these threats of abduction and damnation. The essence of the christian message is honored more in its breach than its observance, of course, and always has been, but threatening children into anxiety for the rest of their lives in celebration of your savior's birthday?

In what world does that make sense?

The one with this horny fellow, I guess. So I'm not buying the structure of the system, obviously, but I really like the iconography of goat-guy running around on his special night; and the art in this version of the myth is effective at being scary without being nightmare fuel, defanging the worst excesses of he mythmaking Alpine storytellers.

Beautiful, eerie artwork, yet not full of ghastly images; the text has a rhythmic, flowing quality that both lulls and gives shape to a story that's not quite as threatening as, say Brom's version of it for older readers. The familiar kid-world cadence of the text is perfect to read aloud in a soothing or at least not overstimulating voice.

There's a storyline that does present a good message in here, one that uses the myth to good effect. I think it's a lovely object, one I think would please your budding horror fiend without traumatizing them or siblings also being read to.

Plus I think even the lap-reading set would enjoy getting the book off the shelf to do some patter-matching with the endsheets.

Your grands will enjoy the time you spend half-scaring them with this story.

ALL I WANT, as frothy and fun and sweet as a venti toasted white chocolate mocha

ALL I WANT
STELLA STARLING
Self-published (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five, caveat: straight people are strongly cautioned

The Publisher Says: “All I want for Christmas is someone to love.”

Shy retail clerk Elliott Gaffney’s Christmas wish isn’t something Santa can grant him, but that doesn’t stop it from being his favorite time of year. Especially since he gets to work at Chicago’s prestigious Ashby’s department store in “the North Pole,” doing his part to make the magic of Christmas come alive for others.

All Bennett “Ash” Ashby wants for Christmas is to forget about it. Unfortunately, his father is forcing him to pay penance for the media frenzy caused by his latest public sex scandal. The Ashby heir, working as a lowly department store Santa? Only the fact that no one will know it’s really him can save Ash the embarrassment of being stuck in a fat suit instead of partying with his friends.

But when Elliott catches Ash’s eye, Christmas starts to look a whole lot brighter. And even though Elliott would never have the guts to say yes if he knew who Ash really was, falling for “Ben,” the new Santa, is another story all together…

I RECEIVED THIS HOLIDAY THEMED ROMANCE AS A FREEBIE ON AMAZON.

My Review: There are far, far, far too many w-bombs (over a dozen!) in this book. A few of them at the beginning are not what they initially seem to be, but the fact is that they don’t stop coming.

Speaking of coming…there’s more of that than I expected in a silly frothing Holiday-season treat like this book. It was an agreeable surprise that I got as much as I did, since it suited my mood that day perfectly. What was also comforting and comfortable was the plot’s absence of fanciness. There wasn’t anything grafted on or poked through to make it more Writerly. It’s a straightforward workplace grump-and-sunshine romp with the usual status and wealth gap.

“Ben” aka Ash the company’s big-boss’s son is forced among the hoi polloi for Xmas…into duty as the flagship store’s Santa! Tell me that’s for a single second believable…but Elliott, the humorously cast nutcracker positioned next to Santa, is there to whisper in “Ben”’s ear the requisite clues on how to handle the kiddies. Which he instantly turns into winning charm and sweetness!

Okay. So you see the Disbelief-alaya you’re going to be required to climb. Summiting K2 in tuxedo slippers without external oxygen would be easier for many, including me in another mood.

Also stretching one’s credulity muscles: Ash is being punished for being caught by the paparazzi in a car having sex with a fellow company director. (No word on that poor bastard’s fate. Can’t’ve been pretty.) Ash’s Page-Six priors are all with socially acceptable men…models, celebs, the like…and Ash’s father, while disapproving of his latest and one must acknowledge supremely stupid escapade, is barely even implied to be upset that it’s with a man. Just that man. And that he got caught. (Even when Ash's earlier struggles to be his queer self are touched on, they aren't foregrounded.)

For Elliott, whose gayness also isn’t remotely disapproved of by his gay and RGBFF colleagues at the store, “Ben” is the “pinch me I must be dreaming” guy, the one whose Look you intercept and turn around to see who he’s looking at…and it’s YOU!...and the bells ring and the birds sing! *wistful sigh* memories do have power.

For Ash, Elliott’s sincere and bone-deep love of the magical way the Holidays make happiness so much easier to find and to share is intoxicating. A sincere pleasure is a rare thing in the world of the very privileged. Everything is much less simple when you’re rich. Every apple has a worm; every horse is Trojan. It’s all very easy…there’s always someone whose job it is to do the labor…but you pay (and pay and pay) for it with the complete and total absence of simplicity. This is why Marie Kondo’s nonsense is so very appealing to wealthy people.

The end product of these two very different men coming (!) together is a somewhat unsustainable HEA. We're in a romance world, but still a HFN would've worked fine...and left room for Reality. These are people from radically different backgrounds, and while opposites attract, similarities endure. You're given many chances to see bits of Ash's growing up process (eg, the Grinch call from his dad, his rescue of the dog and subsequent ability to overcome his collywobbles at dealing with poochie's ticks) and similar opportunities to see Elliott coming to terms with his quite normal fears about someone as handsome as Ash falling for him. But really? What my brain says is, "not a damn chance, they're from different worlds, they'll run out of common ground in seconds flat." The gift Stella Starling has is for making my sentimental "I always cry at weddings" side ruthlessly club that bastard into submission and take over the endocrine system, flooding me with oxytocin. I want to bond, so I want Ash and Elliott to bond, and therefore the...um...not-sturdy framework (too harsh to call it "flimsy" but...) of this relationship Is. Just. FINE.

That issue firmly dealt with (ignore the muffled screams coming from my closet-locked logic centers), we can touch on (!) the sex scenes: Hot enough, not too many or too few, and VERY MUCH NOT HETERO SAFE. No! Down! The mechanics of deflowering a man aren't skimped or dwelt on; and, for a wonder, the top's the PoV character! That's not ordinary, and Stella Starling did a good job of it...sadly, not the usual case. All three of the sex scenes have a certain...lovingkindness...to them, so they're not icky but they're likely to be uncomfortably detailed for those whose tastes don't run towards men with men.

At all events, this is a novel, not a novella; this is a story, not a set-up delivered with pretty wrapping paper; and this won't weigh you down as you're sipping your venti toasted white chocolate mocha, pondering how to survive the weirdness of a second Plague Yule. Smiles and fun all the way, please, Bibliosanta!

Time again for #Booksgiving! The lovely Icelandic idea of a Book Flood

As 2018 wanes, taking with it a boatload of misery, trouble, strife, and negativity, let's focus on something much more fun: #Booksgiving! Between Black Friday and Christmas Eve, I'm here to suggest some literary delights whose (not always) joyful tidings will make the Night Before Christmas a bit less frenetic: Give everyone in your gift-giving circle a special book to read right then and there, in the midst of life, all together.

Wikipedia gives us a wee bit of background on the Icelandic custom of giving a book as a gift to your family and friends at Yuletide. Like here, at least my friends and family...the difference is the Icelandic friends and family like the custom. Decidedly not like many, many people I know.

Iceland isn't like the US in any way that I can think of: no mass shootings, low poverty, socialized medicine, but most importantly the fact that, in a lifetime, one in ten Icelanders will write and have published at least one book. Appearances and Kindle sales to the contrary, that can't happen in the US or there would 35 million writers getting their stuff published. Think of the deforestation implicit in that thankfully unrealized statistic. Agents and publishers will sigh exasperatedly and moan "there already ARE 35 million Americans writing books and they all have MY address!"

I promise that it only feels that way.

Iceland also has an Icelandic Literature Center, according to a 2013 BBC News report, which quotes Agla Magnusdottir (head of the Center as of the article's writing in 2013):

"Writers are respected here," Agla Magnusdottir tells me. "They live well. Some even get a salary." Magnusdottir is head of the new Icelandic Literature Center, which offers state support for literature and its translation.

"They write everything - modern sagas, poetry, children's books, literary and erotic fiction - but the biggest boom is in crime writing," she says.

Yrsa Sigurdardottir, Arnaldur Indriðason, Ragnar Jónasson ring any bells, mystery series lovers? All Icelandic. A book I adored, Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was by Sjón, is Icelandic historical gay fiction. There's a niche for you.

Now think about it. Those writers have achieved popularity in the US market, easily ten times the absolute size of the Icelandic home market, and largely thanks to their government. Pause a moment. Think about that. Writers getting a state-supported salary so they can write. Translators of foreign-language books getting the same. Yea verily, it sounds like heaven.

But is the US actually so different? Most books in our market are published around gift-giving holidays, too. Look up any statistical source you can think of and you'll see the jaw-dropping surge in sales in each and every segment around Yuletide. Black Friday got its name from more than the salesdroids' moody misery on the horrible, horrible day; it's the day that almost all retailers stem their losses and go into black balance-sheet ink.

And it's not like there are no initiatives to encourage the bookish to share their addiction in the Holiday season. Take #GiveBooks, which is described in this Publishing Perspectives piece. It's admirable, and I suggest that you all put some money into the outreach for underserved children to get books. After all, the Jesuits' founder, St. Ignatius Loyola, famously said, "Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man." Knew his onions, did that old guy. He stole from the best, seeing as Aristotle said it first. You can tell because there's neither hide nor hair of "woman" in there, nor any sign that either of those old white men even sensed their absence. I'd recast it as "...I will give you the adult," but purists would be as vocal as feminists in their scorn. One cannot win.

But let's dream big. The tradition of giving a book as a much-desired present...the encouragement to read it that very night...there are some of us who want that family life and now we have a model for how it should look.

Why shouldn't we, book lovers, embrace this vaguely distasteful-in-the-aggregate behavior of being good little consumers? Let's repurpose it. Let's take one tiny facet of Iceland's excellent book culture and bring it here. The Christmas Book Flood isn't directly translatable, and anyway focuses on the end of the process, the gifting that's always so fun.

Let's celebrate the process, shall we? Let's have Booksgiving! Starting on *shudder* Black Friday, let's think about what books we'll flood the tree skirt with on Book Flood Eve. I'll give you some ideas from my 2017 and 2018 reading to include in your purchases.

Happy Booksgiving!

Happy Yule, my friends!

The Solstice is upon us, the longest night of the Solar year. I'll be off, as in not posting, until a few reviews come out late next week. Today at 11:30am Eastern Standard Time, the day will begin its journey to night. This is the moment during the year that cultures more closely attuned to the seasons than Western cultures are have used to celebrate the brightness that begins its inexorable return to the Northern Hemisphere. Traditionally a toast offered at Yuletide is, "All the Yule blessings rain on {your friend's name here}!" This year, the Solstice coincides with a rare astrological alignment of the Sun and Jupiter in Capricorn.

For the astrologically illiterate, that means "whoa Nelly, this gonna be one really bad motherin' day." That toast would just rain hellfire on your friend this year, so don't use it!

I hesitate even to type this...how much worse could it be than the other 350-plus days of 45's totally illegitimate presidency?

What a year this was. What a difficult and complicated year! An illegitimate government based on fraud, lies, and misrepresentation. The worst sort of people, an actual kakistocracy, blatantly colluded with a foreign power for the first time in US history. They wrenched control of our country away from We The People on the 8th of November 2016. One full cycle of the Sun later, the horrors are unraveling but not fast enough, not soon enough, for the most vulnerable among us.

The "laws" passed by the Gross Old Pedophile Party's "lawmakers" are, as they themselves have proved by attacking Obama's very modestly progressive legislative legacy, susceptible to repeal and replacement. It's what they used voter suppression and Russian hackers to achieve, after all, a spurious and invalid "majority" to invalidate, erase the best true Republican president of modern times.

The one solid, reliable joy in this dark night of our national soul has been reading good books. It's a tough world out there. #ReadingIsResistance, my year-long scream of outrage at 45 and his cronies, has kept me from curling up and giving up and resigning from life. They can't colonize my mind if I stuff it full of ideas I want to support, believe in, guide myself by. This is their worst nightmare: The quiet small-time resister with a big mouth and an agenda.

I want everyone to resist the continuing drumbeat of stupidity battering each of us as media outlets report the inane and idiotic blather of the kakistocracy to us. Listen to what these idiots are saying, and in public no less, thinking that the US populace is less a body politic than a hoi polloi, a rabble to be roused then doused with the piss they've trickled down on us.

Here's my one and only positive idea for this Yule, this season of renewal and revival: Raise a glass and toast, "All the Yule blessings rain on you, {insert 45's horrible name here}!" Then so mote it be.

THE ALUMINUM CHRISTMAS TREE, a religious tale about gratitude and self-worth...only GOOD!

THE ALUMINUM CHRISTMAS TREE
THOMAS J. DAVIS
Thomas Nelson Books
$6.99 Kindle edition, available now (non-affiliate Amazon link)

Rating: 3.5 very surprised stars of five

The Publisher Says: The shiny aluminum tree was the symbol of everything he thought was right in their lives and everything she thought was wrong. It was 1958 and Jimmy Jackson had it all: a wife, two kids, and the promotion that was his ticket to success. Finally, he could afford all those things he had gazed at in the Sears Roebuck catalog. But now that he had the money, would he find that the true cost was more than he could pay?

I RECEIVED A COPY OF THE BOOK FROM A DEAR OLD FRIEND. THANK YOU.

My Review: A gift from a delightful old friend, this book arrived at precisely the right time. I was not at my most pleased and happy the day it came. I read the whole book in a sitting, and was much restored and refreshed.

Thomas Davis tells an oft-told tale of a man's descent into depression caused by his single-minded pursuit of material success with no nods towards his inner needs. His wife recounts the tale to her sympathetic audience after his death, which causes her to move to a new, smaller home in town from their half-century long country life on an apple orchard. She tells her cousin and his wife, who are helping her pack and move, the story of the year that almost ended the marriage most people thought was perfect.

I think the story of any well-lived life contains the passage that Mildred, our narratrix, recounts. It's instructive to be reminded of this in fiction as well as fact. All of us fallible humans can run off the rails, and it's often only after losing "everything" that we realize how much we really have that *can't* be lost, only thrown away.

The book breaks no new ground anywhere, but it takes the reader on its well-worn path with a pleasant tone and a loving heart. I can't recommend it to the cynical or the youthful, but anyone over 40 will recognize the situation and could probably benefit from a reminder of its perils and the tenuous nature of human relationships. Take care of them, feed them, prune them carefully, and a lifetime will seem too short.