86 books like Will He Come?

This book is part of the Click, Clack series and just humorous as the others. The snow and lights and Duck in a Santa hat on the cover create a festive winter scene, full of Christmas spirit. The text is sparse and easy to read. The story also has a bit of rhyme in it which is always a favorite for me. The rhyme makes the story energetic at just the right time. The repetition of “Ho! Ho! Uh-oh!” and “unstuck duck” are fun to read. The accumulation of animals adds craziness and chaos which further heightens the humor. The ending is perfect with everyone joyfully gathered around the tree. 

The ending of that war by one of the most remarkable peace treaties ever signed, deserves the detailed treatment it receives in The Peace of Christmas Eve. When the United States declared war in June 1812, its government and people were deeply divided on the wisdom or necessity of such a course of action. Once begun and pursued, a way had to be found the end the conflict. The reader will find the who, how, and why clearly set out in Engelman’s book.

I could choose any of Eric Carle’s books purely for his beautiful, timeless illustrations, but my choice this time is Dream Snow. It is a lift-the-flap book about a farmer who falls asleep on Christmas Eve and wakes up just in time to deliver Christmas presents to his animals. They are called One, Two, Three, Four, and Five. The book has a lovely festive atmosphere and anyone who has come home tired from playing in the snow and fallen asleep in front of the fire will immediately recognise the cosy feeling of this book.  

For a more romance-driven option, Safety Protocols for Human Holidays is a sweet winter holiday-themed novella, wherein Raskli, an alien security officer, is asked to check in on human Jen, who is exhibiting odd behavior. Jen is the only human on the ship and is depressed, and it is up to Raskli and the rest of the ragtag crew to sort out how to cheer her up. Perhaps a holiday! But what human holiday to pick? 

This book is straight-up joyful fluff. Yes, it’s in space, and yes, the pairing is sapphic, but it’s also a cute human/alien romance. No stress on this read, and no heavy thinking. Just, well, kissing. And antics. And Christmas.

I loved The Waltons, the closeness of the family, and how they solved typical family squabbles. As an adult, I watched every episode again with my kids, so I was thrilled when I actually met The Homecoming author Earl Hamner, Jr. (the real John-Boy Walton/Clay-Boy Spencer) in an online writers’ group way back when the internet was first invented. We became great online friends. His John-Boy character inspired the character in my book, a good-hearted teen who, despite living in modern times, traverses his small southern town on a horse, just as John-Boy rode Blue, his mule.

Amory wrote this wildly entertaining read of his rescue of a stray he found sick and starving in a NYC alley on a snowy Christmas Eve in 1977. He named the white cat Polar Bear, a moody curmudgeon with one blue and one gold eye, who became his lifelong companion. The book spent 12 weeks at #1 on The New York Times bestseller list and sold over 10 million copies. Amory was a fierce and famous activist who helped Captain Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society buy a boat to use in his fight against whaling and seal-hunting. In 1980 Amory founded the Black Beauty Ranch in Texas, a refuge for discarded and neglected animals, from cats, dogs, deer, horses to elephants, monkeys, and big cats. That same year, he spent over $500,000 to trap 582 burros and helicopter them out of the Grand Canyon to save these… show more.

I was first acquainted with the works of MR James through the BBC Christmas Eve dramas, though I did not note his name. In later life while reading from a collection of supernatural stories by various authors I recognised an odd familiarity with a tale that centered on what at first appeared to be an unremarkable etching. 

As a child I recall being so terrified by an illustration, drawn in the manner of an etching, of the hideous witch in Hansel and Gretal in a book of fairy tales that I refused to sleep in my bedroom in its company, even though the book was firmly shut. Hardly surprising that the idea of a picture changing in the way recounted in the Mezzotint would resonate with me

Like all my previous choices this book is written and illustrated by the same person which I think allows a very subtle dance between words and pictures in the storytelling. 

Calico the Wonder Horse is a simple black and white comic strip, one or two frames per page, with changing background page colours. There are dramatic panoramas of canyons and mountains hideouts juxtaposed with close-ups of Calico, then Stewy Stinker, and his gang of Bad Men. Its graphic perspectives and cartoon ‘action’ marks make it exciting for kids. The Bad Men are soon brought undone by the heroine horse but it’s so heartening that they eventually redeem themselves in an unexpected way—which kids love too.

First Pynchon. Favorite Pynchon. Opens up on Christmas Eve, 1955 with our hero Benny Profane hanging out in the Sailor’s Grave, a navy bar in Norfolk, where all of the “barmaids” are called Beatrice, including the owner, who posits “that just as small children call all females mother, so sailors, in their way equally helpless, should call barmaids Beatrice.” She tests this theory by putting rubber nipples on the end of the taps and having sailors chug from them during Suck Hour. And this is just the start of Pynchon flexing his hilarious and bizarre imagination in this picaresque novel. I come back to V. whenever I find myself marooned in a sea of depressing fiction, because it cradles me in love and joy.  

This gorgeous and page-turning novel is mostly set in Australia, a place I’ve never been in real life, but Kate’s novel transported me there through imagery and language. I feel like I could walk straight into that setting and feel as if I’d been there before. 

The story is about a young journalist named Jess who is in search of a story. Jess is summoned back to Sydney, where her beloved grandmother is ill in the hospital. What Jess discovers there about a baffling murder in the small town of Tambilla will upend her life.