By: Mariah Carey and Colleen Madden

Sometimes, the Review Brew gets the opportunity to review some weird stuff that's outside of our lane. Case in point: a children's book adaption of Mariah Carey's eponymous "All I Want For Christmas Is You," a song played so frequently at the holidays that it's polarized America into either extreme love or extreme loathing. I fall into the latter--but I've got a kid who considers it a favorite. So what the hell, I decided to review this mysterious little book to see what Mariah Carey knows about writing children's books.

In brief: it’s fine. I really can’t say how much I would have done differently than what Carey and her illustrator Colleen Madden did here, which was to take Carey’s song and turn it into a series of vignettes about a little girl who wants a puppy for Christmas. This is probably a better topic than the original intention of the song, purportedly being a romantic ode to Carey’s then-husband Tommy Mottolla. Yeah, kids don’t to read about that. So what we get instead is something a little more accessible to kids–familiar Christmas imagery like ice-skating and caroling, all revolving around the girl and her hopes for a puppy.

Here’s the thing about children’s books–and I mean children, with this book probably being appropriate for a beginning reader between three and six–it’s a very visual medium. There has to be far more to the story than the words on the page, and the artist has to make interesting full-page visuals in order to captivate her young readers. This is particularly true here, where the “script” for the story is really just Carey’s song lyrics put on the page unaltered. I’m really not clear on how much of the story was directed by Carey versus McFadden–though in the end, the artist is the one who has to bring the story to life.

Anyway, McFadden does fine with what she has to work with. Her style reminds me of a lot of 1950s cartooning, bordering between detailed and yet abstract. It’s very retro, and yet doesn’t look old.  And there’s a lot to pore over here, where she’s meticulously illustrated distinct ornaments all over a Christmas tree or words all over comically long lists to Santa. She also makes wonderful use of color–her outdoor scenes are colored in cool-yet-comfortable blues, for example. So if this book has any value, it’s in McFadden’s delightful illustrations of very traditional Christmas activities like caroling, seeing Santa, and making cookies which the young reader should just be beginning to appreciate.

The one potential drawback is in determining how this story should be read.  “All I Want For Christmas Is You” as a song is an entirely different medium from All I Want For Christmas Is You as a book. I attempted to read through the book with the song playing, but it doesn’t quite work as the musical version changes pace and has a bridge. The book has split up the lyrics across various pages, and it’s not as though you get a single paragraph of song per page. As a singalong book, you and your young reader may find yourselves rapidly flipping pages at some points and having a little slower pace at others.

In the end, this song dominates the radio every year, and if you have a young daughter or niece who loves to sing, she probably rocks out to this song every year.  (Mine does.)  So if you need a Christmas treat for her (or him–I know some guys who love Mariah Carey too), this is fine.

Rating: Four and a half out of five R&B albums.

All I Want For Christmas Is You is available from Doubleday Press for $17.99.