When Santa Turned Green by Victoria Perla

When Santa Turned Green by Victoria Perla, illustrated by Merla Kantarevic

Rating: 4.5 inspirational and optimistic stars

Yes, that's right.  It's June.  And I'm writing about a Santa book.  That's because our neighbor thoughtfully ignored our "no gift, please" invitation to Lorelei's birthday party and gave us this book.  Of course we appreciated it, being the booky folks we are.  I was pretty surprised myself to find the Santa book on the other side of non-Christmas wrapping paper, but we dug right in because we don't really know what seasons are around these parts.

This is our first really environmental book.  I'm a green person myself, but I haven't really been deliberately teaching about the environment to our kids.  I mean, Lorelei and Ben know what goes into the recycling bin (no, not the dog's bone) and the compost pile (no, not your little brother, Lorelei) and we walk the half mile to the mailbox instead of driving there.  We make sure we turn out the lights when we leave the room, and we try not to waste water, even though our new Dora soap makes hand washing something we could do for hours.  We are lucky to have woods outside our doorstep, and we talk a lot about planting trees, and we plant a bunch each year on our property.  We talk about the importance of rain and reusing water.  I give myself a 8 or something on a scale of 1 to 10.  (We have two non-hybrid SUVs, so I'll never earn a perfect score until we get rid of them.)

I am not exactly sure how to rate this book.  Of course, I applaud the effort improving our ozone layer and of course am behind the idea of getting children involved.  And the book does a great job of selling the idea to kids: First, the author brings in the big guns: Santa!  There's nothing that gets a preschooler's attention like Santa, even in June.  Second, Ms. Perla explains how our environment needs a miracle, and kids have the ability to believe in miracles.  Ok, I'm on board with that.  Third, kids are encouraged to do small things, like the things I mentioned that we do in our house, along with even bigger things, like making recycling a part of their school and not drinking bottled water and stuff.  Good, good, good!  I like this.

I guess my hold up, and why it doesn't get a perfect score in my book, is the part of the book in between the beginning, when Santa's icicles are melting on his head, and he realizes that all the glaciers around the North Pole are melting, and the ending, when Santa/the author encourages kids to do lots of small things because together, so that we can all make a difference.  That middle part when I was suddenly explaining to Lorelei and Ben about the ozone layer...I fully expected my husband to start chuckling in the next room.  It is a really, really big concept to someone who is just understanding the whole outer space thing.  (Lorelei asked me why her friend's daddy wasn't home during a recent playdate; she asked if he was in space.  "I don't think he's an astronaut, Lorelei, I think he was just at work.") 

I find that the balance between teaching to and holding the attention of kids is one of the important things in fantastic children's books.  This book is close, but doesn't quite get it right.

But you know what, I don't think it's too early.  I think Lorelei got about .00035% of the idea.  But maybe during the next read she'll be at .0045%, and maybe in six months she'll be up to 5%.  And she definitely is impressionable, so if she thinks Santa encourages her to turn off the lights and wrap gifts in newspaper and compost even more stuff, that is a great thing!

This is a great Christmas gift.  Buy a dozen now and hand them out to everyone with kids, and their parents, too.  Check out the book/author's website if you have a few minutes to spare, because maybe miracles can happen, especially if adults join in with their little ones.

(And, when checking this book out on the web, I've realized what should have been obvious to me: There are a whole lot of green children's books.  So...stay tuned!  Hopefully our wonderful library has them, or has access to them.  Also...am curious if there's more I can/should be doing.  Feel free to share what you do!)