Don’t think about The Contest from Seinfeld, don’t think about The Contest from Seinfeld. Nay you 90’s fans of quality television this is The Christmas Contest. It’s a book that’s been too long dormant on my to-do shelf, but is now seeing the top of my desk and ready for its close-up. And…I feel an initial pang of regret because its hook, if you’re down with Advent, is very logical and addictive. Side note: worst headline ever.
The main thing I know about Advent is that there are calendars everywhere that herald the Christmas holiday. A little bit of research has just told me that it begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and lasts for four weeks. This all makes sense as to why the calendar aspect plays a large part in Advent being on the radar of secular folks. Now, with all of that in mind and now known about that time of year, The Christmas Contest is even cuter, more logical and intriguing than I thought it was.
I always knew that the shtick behind Advent calendars was that you open a new thing each day. If there was ever an Advent calendar I was tempted to engage in it was The Nightmare Before Christmas thing that I saw in Costco one time. But even then, I knew that my enjoyment of the intellectual property would’ve conquered the supposed daily limit of the things that I was opening on a timed basis. My Advent calendar would’ve been a heap of Jack Skellington memorabilia and the overall point of said Halloween Town meets Christmas Advent would’ve fallen flat.
The format behind The Christmas Contest is perfect for pre-k through second graders. There are some third graders who love Christmas, surprises, and are reluctant readers, who also will dig The Christmas Contest. The macguffin is this: Santa Claus is really busy this year and needs an assistant to help deliver presents. There are four contestants that Santa has chosen, Ivy and Nathan, two elves from the village, Koko, a monkey and Groomph, a gnome.
Don’t get freaked out because there’s an instruction page in the book. It’s a brief explanation on how to use the book, and you need it, but again, don’t get freaked out. The 24 different things that you open in The Christmas Contest are pages that, when read together, add up to a very cute story that young ages will laugh and grin over. The opening is done by carefully ripping the clearly defined perforated edges of the pages. You will then discover four pages of a (here’s that word again) cute story that’s complete with illustrations. The instructions advise adults to use a ruler to separate the pages. We simply carefully ripped the pages apart and were just fine. However, younger fingers might be careless and this task is best served by waiting for their parents to assist.
The Christmas Contest’s story is not what will keep kids glued to it. From an illustration perspective, it would’ve been great to see the images on the pages that are bundled together change in tandem with the text’s pacing. It would start with the village barely decorated, and then kids could flip through the pages to see the characters and village building up to Christmas. That also would’ve ballooned the book’s price point up considerably, but I do wonder if the book’s impact would’ve been greater had that been done.
Instead, the thing that will keep young readers engaged in The Christmas Contest is the storytelling part of the story. The bits that the young readers encounter are short, entertaining and engaging. They’re loaded with sight words and have a Christmas energy that will make ages 5-9 look forward to bedtime, when they get to open another day into the story. This is not a story that kids will happen into accidentally. It’s clearly an Advent-themed book with Christmas all over it. It’s also not religious or about the spiritual nature of the holiday. It is unlikely that The Christmas Contest is unlikely to enter the radar of non-religious readers. However, anyone who engages with it will enjoy an early chapter book story that has a discovery element that’ll charm young audiences until the 24th night.
The Christmas Contest: An Advent Novel is by Maxime Gillio and Benedetta Capriotti and is available on Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
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