This is a great multicultural holiday DVD.
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Normally I'm not a fan of the shuffling and recombination that Weston Woods has done in putting together new DVDs of Scholastic Storybook Treasures, but this Christmas DVD is a nice one, even if we have seen some of the stories before. And the series itself is an excellent one. If you're not familiar with it, Weston Woods has produced video versions of some of the most beloved children's books, many of the Newberry or Caldecott winners. The animation is all over the place. In some stories, a camera pans and scans the illustrations, zooming in and out Ken Burns-style. In others, there's partial animation, with a static book illustration given movement as the filmmakers picked out one detail from each page to animate. Finally, some (like the Rosemary Wells entries that appear in this set as bonus stories) are fully animated. But the series itself is a nice supplement for children who love to read, and a way to encourage those who don't to pick up a book more often. That's a good thing, right? And this collection gives young ones plenty to think about.
The Little Drummer Boy is relegated to a bonus feature on this disc, when a few holidays ago it was the main title. This is a book featuring lyrics by Katherine Davis, Henry Oronati, and Harry Simeone, illustrated by Ezra Jack Keats. It's the original "Drummer Boy" song, in this case arranged and sung by John Jennings as the camera pans and scans the colorful pages of the 1968 book. Call it a sedate and reverent music video, one that's probably appropriate for showing the night before Christmas right before other bedtime stories and family rituals. There's not a whole lot of plot, if you know the song, and not a whole lot of explanation. We don't know a thing about this little drummer boy who basically tells the story of Christ's birth with a par-um-pa-pa-pum. We don't know where he came from, why he drums, or why he's there, really. But we accept it as another witness to the miracle of Christmas, as generations have. The book's illustrations are in a classic style, with a bright yellow and orange and white mottled sky for backgrounds.
The Night Before Christmas is the title story this time around, and when I first heard about this title I wondered which illustrations they'd go with. After all, the stores are full of different versions of the famous Clement Clarke Moore poem. I think they made a good choice, because these illustrations by Ruth Sanderson impart a nice warmth to St. Nick, whereas some of the depictions have gone the other route.
"The Little Drummer Boy" and "The Night Before Christmas" cover the sacred and secular aspects of the Christian Christmas, but this is a multi-cultural, multi-holiday DVD.
In the Month of Kislev is a wonderful fable by Nina Jaffe, illustrated by Louise August and narrated by Theodore Bikel. More warm and rich drawings tell the story of a rich merchant who's the Yiddish equivalent of Mr. Scrooge. He's so miserly that he even takes offense when a poor family who's head is a peddler smells the rich family's potato pancakes. But when he takes them to court, he ends up learning a lesson (as do we all) about the true meaning of Hanukkah.
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[release]25194[/release]