Clifford Celebrates The Year Scholastic

Eight Clifford stories celebrate a full year of fun! This treasury of Clifford books includes eight holiday and seasonal adventures featuring everyone's favorite Big Red Dog, Clifford! This bind-up includes: Clifford, We Love You Clifford's Birthday party Clifford's Happy Easter Clifford's Spring Clean-up Clifford and the Big Parade Clifford's Halloween Clifford's Thanksgiving Visit Clifford's Christmas Editorial Reviews Amazon.com Review Spanning 1966 to 1998, this collection of eight Clifford classics follows everybody's favorite Big Red Dog through an entire year's worth of holidays (Clifford, We Love You; Clifford's Birthday Party; Clifford's Happy Easter; Clifford's Spring Clean-Up; Clifford and the Big Parade; Clifford's Halloween; Clifford's Thanksgiving Visit; and Clifford's Christmas). The stories are as fun as ever (if a little dated--even, strangely, the more recent ones), but serious students of Clifford-ology will particularly love some of the choicer bits creator Norman Bridwell includes in this compilation: Clifford's entire family (mother, father, sisters, and brother), two Clifford puppy sightings (he's about the size of a very cute lunch box), Clifford's gigantic Halloween ghost costume (again, classic), some King Kong-style clambering over skyscrapers (in Clifford's Thanksgiving Visit), and the official Clifford song (entitled "It's Clifford," reprinted here with sheet music and handy notation). Even Clifford's religious affiliations get cleared up: the BRD is decidedly gentile, as he celebrates both Christmas and Easter, albeit in a pretty hands-off, nondenominational way. Bridwell's time-honored dog tales don't exactly rely on unpredictability for their charm (they're funny because he's big), and this collection is no exception. But if you love Clifford--or you love someone else who loves Clifford--you can't go wrong getting in on the big guy's celebrations. (Ages 4 to 8) --Paul Hughes