Review - Llama Llama Jingle Bells

Llama Llama Jingle Bells (Llama Llama)
by Anna Dewdney
Date: 2014
Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book
Pages: 14
Format: e-book
Source: library

With short and simple rhyming text, the Llama Llama board books introduce Llama Llama to babies and toddlers before they’re ready for longer full-length stories. And their small size and durable pages are perfect for little hands.

In Llama Llama Jingle Bells, little llama and his friends give gifts, sing songs, and decorate cookies. It’s a very merry holiday indeed!

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I love the Llama Llama books! After discovering them a few years ago, I've read as many as I could find, and I've even given Llama Llama Red Pajama (my favourite) as a gift. Now, many of the books in the series are longer; this is one of the board books, intended for babies and toddlers. As such, it's really short. That's probably my main complaint.

But this very short book still manages to tell a story in rhyme about a little llama preparing for Christmas. He goes with his mom to get a tree, exchanges gifts with his friends, sings songs, bakes and decorates cookies (and then leaves them out for Llama Santa), and goes to bed amid delicious smells... only to awake the next morning to Christmas.

The illustrations are adorable, as usual. Little Llama often has his llama toy in hand, and his friends--a diverse group of animals--are always fun to see.

I wish our library had the longer Christmas book, Llama Llama Holiday Drama. Llama Llama Jingle Bells is very cute, but it lacks the fleshing-out of plot and characters of the longer books.

Quotable moment:

Premise: 3/5
Meter: 4/5
Writing: 4/5
Illustrations: 4/5
Originality: 3/5

Enjoyment: 4/5

Overall: 3.71 out of 5