Barry Lee Johnson

The animal residents of a small farm in the Smaland Highlands of Sweden await the coming of the Tomten one Christmas Eve night in this picture-book from author Barry L. Johnson. Each of them - Gerta the cow, Christina the pig, Oscar the Clydesdale, and Ivan the dog - hope for something special from this holiday gift-giver. But when their gifts arrive - a plank of wood and a stick for Gerta, a broken piece of mirror for Christina, a tiny saucer for Oscar, and an injured parrot in a box for Ivan - they are dismayed and angry. Led by Ivan, they trap the Tomten when he returns for his porridge, and demand an explanation. The Tomten chastises them, and explains that each gift was specially chosen. The wood was to create a stool to help the farmer to milk Gerta, and make the process less painful; the mirror was to help Christina avoid becoming stuck in tight places, through her fear of backing up; the saucer was meant to lure the farm cat into Oscar's stall, to keep away the mice he fears; and the parrot was given to Oscar because the Tomten believed in the dog's wisdom, and chose to honor him with the privilege of caring for the handicapped. The animals are ashamed of themselves, and throughout the course of the night, each sneaks over to the dish of porridge and eats it, to spare the others the knowledge that the Tomten has rejected it, a sure sign of bad luck for the coming year...

Published in 1981, The Visit of the Tomten is the only tomten story with which I am familiar, to be written and illustrated by Americans. I was quite curious to see what it would be like, but unfortunately I found it something of a disappointment. The story itself is rather cumbersome, and somewhat preachy. This is perhaps not surprising, given that Johnson, who learnt of tomte while visiting a Christmas gift shop in his area, wrote it as his Christmas message for the church he led at the time - Shiloh Curch, in Dayton, Ohio. Intended as a sermon, the story here comes across like a sermon, and while I have certainly listened to and/or read sermons which I found engaging, this one didn't really appeal. There's nothing really wrong with the story, nothing I found objectionable, but it simply didn't have any of the sense of mystery and magic I have come to associate with tales of these diminutive gnome-like creatures of Swedish folklore. I had none of the gentle pleasure, in reading, that I did when perusing Astrid Lindgren's The Tomten and The Tomten and the Fox. Nor did I find the artwork by Edward Hageman, a member of Johnson's congregation, particularly appealing. It had a cartoon-like quality I found off-putting, especially when compared to the artwork of Harald Wiberg! I feel a little guilty for my rather harsh criticism of this one, because it feels very much like a self-produced community project, and no doubt had meaning for the members of that community, but I simply didn't get enough out of my reading experience to consider more than a two-star rating.… (mer)