Jingle, All the Way Home: An Advent Countdown Story

Gr 1-3–This saccharine holiday story, repurposed and adapted from Hapka’s Santa’s Puppy (2019), consists of 24 chapters and is intended to be read one chapter at a time from December 1 through December 24. Santa’s dog Jingle is eager to join Santa on his journey delivering gifts around the world. He stows away on Santa’s sleigh and is accidentally left behind at the Kerstman home. Discovered by siblings Chris and Holly on Christmas morning, Jingle is desperate to find his way home through one of many portals to the North Pole that Santa uses to travel each year; unfortunately, these portals will lock at the end of Christmas Day, not to be unsealed until next year. Luckily for Jingle, Chris has enough Christmas spirit to hear and understand Jingle. Chris, Holly, and Holly’s best friend Ivy team up to help Jingle find one of the portals, and the result is a jolly, if trite, adventure through the town of Poinsettia. Every page includes colorful, digitally rendered illustrations of various Christmas items, from cookies and ornaments to snowflakes and fir trees. Ivy is identified in the text as Japanese American, and the Kerstman family is portrayed in tones of peach and light brown. Additional characters, including two elves on the hunt for Jingle, are depicted in a variety of skin tones.