The Dog Who Saved Santa (review)

It may be the night before Christmas, but Santa’s doing little to help the preparations; the sad truth is that “Santa was a slacker.” His loyal pooch, Rodney, decides he’d better come along on the delivery run, and it’s a good thing, too, since Rodney begins by driving the sleigh and then has to take over the present-schleppage and chimney climbs when Santa conks out. When the public is furious at the shambles of a Christmas, Rodney puts his considerable talents to reforming Santa, and “that’s how Santa learned to be the hardworking spirit of Christmas we know today!” Though the story rambles on a little and the logic doesn’t hold up under close scrutiny (if the Santa-y Santa hadn’t been created yet, why were people disappointed?), there’s too much entertainment here to mind. Rodney is a long-suffering counterpart to the Grinch’s Max but with more drive and executive capability, and the notion of Santa as a couch potato who can’t face what is, in fact, a pretty mammoth job is hilariously heretical (and also understandable to kids who aren’t always keen to bound off the couch for their own labors). Mixed-media art starts with quick, squiggly-lined draftsmanship and adds texture with acrylic paints and colored pencil as well as watercolor. Kelley comically portrays Santa’s North Pole residence as a homey place with a beat-up couch and magnetted mottoes stuck to the refrigerator, and comedic visual elements repay close attention (as in the details of Rodney’s high-powered cubicle, from the pictured reindeer “Employees of the Month” to the volumes labeled “Nice,” “Not Sure,” and “Naughty”). Kids who feel—or would like to pretend—that they’re so over Christmas will find this sly reinvigoration a tasty stocking-stuffer.