Stand Tall

This is a favorite of mine. Here, Tree, a hugely tall boy, helps his grandfather into a Santa suit. Not easy, because his grandpa recently lost a leg.

Getting Grandpa in the Santa suit reminded Tree of the time when his mother had bought an outfit for their dog Bradley -- a sweater, hat, and booties -- and Tree had to put it on him.

"Standing's not an ability I've got right now!" Grandpa tried to steady himself as Tree tried to pull the big red pants over his legs.

"It would help," Tree said, "if you'd stop moving so much."

"It would help if I had two working legs."

"Let's go with what we've got, Grandpa!"

Finally the pants were on. Grandpa looked at the floppy pant hanging loose over his half leg.

The Trash King adjusted his elf cap, cigar in his mouth. "You could say a reindeer chewed it off." King put on his pointy elf shoes, struck a pose. "Am I hot or what?"

"Scorching," said Grandpa. "But lose the cigar."

"It's not lit."

"You've got to be a role model."

King put the cigar in his pocket. "And you've got to be careful, Leo. We tell the kids you've got to save your strength for Christmas Eve, when an angel's gonna come down from heaven, touch you with a magic wand, and your leg's gonna grow back."

Grandpa looked in the mirror Tree was holding up, put rouge on his cheeks, fastened the big white beard. "We're going to ruin this holiday for hundreds of children."

King picked a cigar leaf from his teeth.

"Ho, ho, ho," said Tree halfheartedly, folded the wheelchair, and carried it to the truck.

"The thing about Christmas," the Trash King said, driving his truck to the children's hospital, "is how I didn't understand what it was about until I got to Vietnam. You remember Christmas in Nam, Leo?"

Grandpa sighed. "I was in the hospital."

"That's right. You didn't get to see the show." King turned the corner. "They brought in a big show from the States with singers and dancers. There were hundreds of us out there watching. A couple guys made a Christmas tree out of bamboo and painted it green. I was feeling sorry for myself because I wasn't home.

"And then we started singing. Just singing the songs. 'Silent Night,' 'Jingle Bells,' 'We wish You a Merry Christmas,' 'Hark, Those Herald Angels Sing.' And I could have sworn -- and a few guys in the Signal Corps would back me up on this -- that there was a star in the sky a little brighter over where we were. And I thought, we get these holidays all wrong. We think it's what we get and how we feel and how warm and cozy we are, but Christmas came to all us slobs that night and most of those guys weren't expecting it. Some of us hadn't even washed."

King pulled up to the hospital parking lot. Grandpa grinned. "We've got a job to do."

Tree got the wheelchair from the back, placed a red throw blanket over it. Carefully eased Grandpa out of the truck and into the chair.

"Santa has landed," said King.

"You bet your boots, Elf Man."

Grandpa adjusted his beard, waved them forward like a lieutenant leading a platoon into battle. "Let's take this hill."

He grabbed the chair's wheels with his strong arms and pushed through the emergency doors that swung open at the miraculous power of Christmas.

"Ho, ho, ho," Grandpa bellowed to young and old who looked up excitedly.

"The Big Guy's here!" the Trash King shouted. "We're going to party tonight!"

Check out the Reader's Guide How to Talk to Your Children About Hard Times.

"A triumphant tale!" Publisher's Weekly

"An eloquent story of ordinary heroes..." Kirkus Reviews

"It's hard to imagine any ordinary young reader coming across a book by Joan Bauer and not feeling at least a little bit better about the world." Charles Taylor, New York Times, read the review here.