Lighthouse Christmas (review)

Find a picture book with a lighthouse setting and chances are you'll also find a plucky little girl who keeps the light burning and saves the storm-tossed sailors. Buzzeo's Christmas offering puts a bit of holiday tinsel on the tried-and-true tale. It's the first Christmas for Frances and her brother, Peter, since their mother died and their father took a transfer from his mainland lighthouse to one on an island in Penobscot Bay. A run of bad weather has prevented the supply ship from reaching Ledge Light, and as their household supplies dwindle, Peter is so desperate for a real celebration with all the customary rituals that Papa agrees the children should go to their aunt on the mainland while he stays and tends to business. The weather worsens, though, and on Christmas Eve Papa must rely on Frances to tend the light while he puts out in his dory to rescue a fisherman. As the children try to make the best of their ruined holiday to cheer Papa and their guest, a small plane flies low over Ledge Light and drops a bundle of supplies with a note reading "Seasons Greetings from The Flying Santa." An appended note apprises readers that the Flying Santa Service is a real organization, founded by a lone floatplane pilot in 1929 and expanded over the years to serve Coast Guard families through the present day. The telling is smooth and engaging, and Carpenter's mixed-media pictures set the appropriate mood—warm and hospitable inside the lighthouse, dark and tempestuous outside—so even children who are yet unfamiliar with the lighthouse-keeper's-daughter trope will cheer the heroics right on cue. The brief appearance of the Flying Santa upstages the rescue somewhat, since listeners will wish they could follow the pilot as he makes his holiday rounds, but the appeal of a surprising yet old-fashioned Christmas on an isolated island will be enough to satisfy many holiday buffs.