Socks: A Kid’s Christmas Lament

K-Gr 2–A great tale of tragedy and socks perfect for precocious present finders. On Christmas morning, a young boy wakes up and sneaks downstairs to guess what his presents are. To his horror, they all appear to be socks! As he laments this tragedy and works through his anger, he eventually notices the positive points of this Christmas present. McPherson has created a wonderfully rhyming tragedy for kids. The text is legible and very clear against the pages, and the rhyme scheme keeps up a rather quick pace for this otherwise long lament. Some of the vocabulary is high for younger students, but easily explained or shown through illustrations. The artwork helps show the boy’s emotions not just through his face, but through his actions and the overall color scheme of the book: Orrock uses a few different contrasting colors to clearly show readers how the boy is feeling versus the reality.