The Night Before Christmas

by Clement C. Moore, Mary Engelbreit (Illustrator), Mary Engelbreit

Overview

Here at Laughing Elephant, we have more than fifty versions of this wonderful poem in our library - this is one of our favorites.

The immortal words of ""Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house ... "" have never sounded better than in Laughing Elephant's facsimile of the 1917 poem. Retaining the original illustrations and text, this reproduction is both familiar and completely unique. And, Margaret Evans Price has created one of the kindest Santas ever imagined - just look at the cover! Her illustrations blend beautifully with Clement Clarke Moore's famous words, creating the perfect Christmas time story. Laughing Elephant's The Night Before Christmas also features the original die-cut shape, with an additional and extremely appealing rounded top.

This is an ideal first Night Before Christmas for a young child. Read it before bedtime and watch the young ones drift off to sleep with visions of sugarplums in their heads. All is calm, all is bright.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780060081607
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	09/28/2006
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	0.00(w) x 0.00(h) x (d)
Lexile:	AD940L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Clement Clarke Moore (1779 - 1863) was an American writer and professor. His poem "An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas, " first published anonymously in 1823, became known as the Christmas classic "The Night Before Christmas. " The story was written as a Christmas gift for his six children. Moore was a lifelong New Yorker and died in his summer home in Newport, Rhode Island.

Margaret Evans Price (1888 – 1973) was a toy manufacturer, artist, illustrator, and designer from New York. Founder of Fisher Price toys (along with her husband Irving Price and their collaborator Herman Fisher), she lived in East Aurora, New York with her family, where she designed toys to resemble the characters from her children’s books.

Read an Excerpt

The Night Before Christmas

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By Barbara Reid, Clement C. Moore

ALBERT WHITMAN & Company

Copyright © 2013 Barbara Reid
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8075-5625-2

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CHAPTER 1

    'Twas the night before Christmas,
    when all through the house
    Not a creature was stirring,
    not even a mouse.

    The stockings were hung
    by the chimney with care,
    In hopes that St. Nicholas
    soon would be there.

    The children were nestled
    all snug in their beds,

    While visions of sugarplums
    danced in their heads;

    And Mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
    Had just settled down for a long winter's nap,

    When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
    I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.

    Away to the window I flew like a flash,
    Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
    The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
    Gave a lustre of midday to objects below,
    When, what to my wondering eyes did appear,
    But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer,
    With a little old driver so lively and quick,
    I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick.

    More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
    And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
    "Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen!
    On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Donder and Blitzen!
    To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall!
    Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

    As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
    When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
    So up to the housetop the coursers they flew,

    With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.
    And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
    The prancing and pawing
    of each little hoof.

    As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
    Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
    He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
    And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
    A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
    And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Night Before Christmas by Barbara Reid, Clement C. Moore. Copyright © 2013 Barbara Reid. Excerpted by permission of ALBERT WHITMAN & Company.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

09/04/2017
Caparo follows Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Rudolph Shines Again with a handsome interpretation of Moore’s classic holiday poem that brings it into the present day. In an urban neighborhood of townhouses, it’s a scruffy-haired young dad in a cardigan who leaps out of bed and, after putting on dark-framed eyeglasses, spots Santa soaring overhead. The text of the poem is unchanged, which means that Caparo supplies this Santa with a pipe to smoke (he also gives him a pair of red, Converse-style high tops in lieu of boots). Along with the contemporary details Caparo brings to this retelling, the antics of the family’s pets (and a pair of mice) add to the fun. The modern family that features in Caparo’s sumptuous, lifelike images may help some readers connect to the sometimes-remote language of the original—he successfully gives this poem a fresh and stylish spin while reaffirming its timelessness. Ages 4–7. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

A snow covered Victorian New York City is the location for Lobel’s version of this classic poem. Jolly St. Nick arrives, leaving an array of toys before he flies over a majestic scene of the Brooklyn Bridge and city skyline. Lobel’s paintings are gentle and reassuring, filled with intricate detail and family love.”—School Library Journal, Starred

From the Publisher

10/01/2017
PreS-Gr 2—Moore's beloved Christmas poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" receives new treatment from illustrator Caparo. The house is quiet and everyone sound asleep when the father of the family wakes to a commotion and runs to investigate. Lo and behold, St. Nick and his retinue of reindeer are on the roof. Santa pops down the chimney, stuffs stockings as he puffs on a pipe, and exits via chimney as quickly as he arrived, exclaiming, "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!" Caparo's digital paintings capture the nighttime stillness of the house in plums and yellows; the winter landscape is rendered in icy blues and swirling snow. The action is driven by the father, agape with wonder, his bright-eyed Jack Russell terrier, and Santa, of course. St. Nick's arrival with Blitzen et al. is the dramatic highlight, and Santa's footwear gets an update with jaunty red high-tops. This is a solid, though not particularly inventive take, on a Christmas classic that has been reinterpreted ad infinitum. Young readers will appreciate the lush illustrations and Santa's cheeky jollity. VERDICT An additional purchase for libraries in need of fresh holiday content.—Shanna Kim, Los Angeles Public Library

School Library Journal

2014-08-12
Reid turns her Plasticine talents to an interpretation of the classic poem. Taking her cue from "not even a mouse," she focuses her visual narrative on a mouse family that inhabits a cozy, snow-covered log. Though the busyness of its inhabitants betrays that many creatures are actually stirring, readers are likely to forgive this artistic license. They will be too busy poring over the detail-filled spreads to carp. A harassed mouse parent has a swaddled babe under one arm and vainly tries to keep another from playing with the Christmas stockings with the other. Far from being "nestled / all snug in their beds," these mouselings are raising a rumpus, climbing about on their bunk beds and tossing sugarplums at one another. Santa's approach is spectacular, pairs of Plasticine reindeer increasing in size to accentuate perspective as they pull a tiny mouse Santa aloft while a fox looks up from below. The jovial Santa is appropriately round, though he has just a faint hint of white chin whiskers. Apparently oblivious to the onlooking mouse family, he stuffs the stockings before departing—as the mouse children scamper back into bed to avoid being caught out by mama and papa. The lively mischief will carry children past the narrative inconsistencies in this fun-filled romp. (Picture book. 3-5)

Kirkus Reviews