The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on).
GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude. This is an unfortunate but minor flaw in an otherwise splendid contribution, another winner from an accomplished team. These appear in the order established in the body of the text, but no page numbers assist the reader looking for something particular. Two pages of animal facts at the end add further information, usually the animal’s size, where it lives and what it eats. The creators of this intriguing survey include mammals, from elephants to mole rats, insects, birds and fish. Jenkins’s signature cut- and torn-paper images artfully spread across clean white pages with just a paragraph of text and label for each relationship. Grizzly bear brothers grow up fighting each other peregrine falcon siblings practice hunting with each other. Giant anteaters are only children, for instance cichlids and myna birds may have stepsiblings. Beginning with numbers of brothers and sisters and going on to the nature and length of the relationship, page by page they introduce varied species from around the world.
Choosing yet another child-friendly theme, Jenkins and Page explore sibling relationships in the animal world.
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