Santa Is Coming to Bellingham (2013) is decidedly uneven.
I checked it out of the library because I got curious about picture books about my region of the country (Pacific Northwest/PNW), state (Washington), and/or town (Bellingham).
It isn’t good. It starts promisingly enough. Robert Dunn’s illustrations are bright, friendly, and cartoonish. Steve Smallman’s text is functional enough, launching us immediately into a familiar story of Santa and his helpers getting ready for Christmas. There’s a good interplay between text and image at the start, and the text changes size for emphasis, showing some attention to design.
However…sigh.
The story doesn’t hold together. Some parts are updated (Santa uses “Santa-nav” for navigation). Others aren’t, and there’s no clear reason. Bellingham has some very distinct visual elements, such as the Whatcom Museum, housed in the old (1892) city hall building:
or Bellingham Bay. None of those are here: the visuals are generic.
The same for the story. There are some foods common to the PNW (like, say, salmon). Those aren’t here. There are challenges that could be common to the PNW (lots of rain, for example, or really tall trees). Those aren’t here.
This reads like it was written and illustrated generically, and then a few place names were plugged in: weak localization/personalization.
I do not recommend.
