BookBox: Enchanting Christmas Stories

Featuring both English and Spanish language/text options, this half-hour “reading Karaoke” compilation includes five stories. Literacy expert Dr. Brij Kothari created the BookBox series of same-language subtitled programming, with the aim of helping to build reading skills as well as teach other languages. While the animation here is very rudimentary, the focus is definitely on the read-along aspect of the stories (using a follow the highlighted word format), which include “The First Christmas” Nativity tale, the classic “The Elves and the Shoemaker,” and the festive “Santa's Christmas” (in which a youngster reciprocates with gifts and appreciation for a sick St. Nick), as well as the non-holiday, friendship-themed entries “Tucket the Bucket” and “The Greatest Treasure.” The super-simple cartoons won't much appeal to the Nickelodeon crowd, but as an educational and entertaining approach to foreign language development, Enchanting Christmas Stories—which is also available in English/French, English/German, English/Italian, and English/Chinese versions—is recommended, overall. [Note: also newly available in the BookBox series is Stories from Around the World.] Aud: K, E, P. (J. Williams-Wood)