Hillbilly Night Afore Christmas (Night Before Christmas Series) - Hardcover

Praise for The Night Before Christmas Series:
"Forget Dancer, Prancer, Comet, and Vixen. . . . Good Clement, wherever he is, will not be gnashing his teeth."
--%iNew York Times Book Review%r

"Rice is especially good with facial expressions, whether they are on a Texas jackrabbit, a longhorn steer, a dusty cowboy, or the green and long-nosed alligator named Gaston."
--%iLibrary Journal%r

Christmas has come to the mountain country of Appalachia, and St. Nicholas begins his annual journey southward to bring joy and happiness to youngsters of all ages.
The traditional St. Nick, so well known to boys and girls almost everywhere, is transformed into a jolly, twinkly-eyed mountain man named Sainty. He is dressed from head to foot in homemade clothing and drives a gift-laden buckboard pulled swiftly through the sky by eight plump, friendly black bears.
Before the night is through, Sainty will visit all the good little boys and girls throughout the mountains and hills. As he begins his journey homeward, a voice calls out loud and clear:
%i"Merry Christmas, ole boy,
Y'all come back, yuh hear!"%r
Written in mountain-country dialect by Thomas Noel Turner, a native of the region and a professor of education at the University of Tennessee, %iHillbilly Night Afore Christmas%r draws its inspiration from James Rice's hugely successful first book, %iCajun Night Before Christmas.%r Turner is also the author of Country Music Night Before Christmas.
Widely acclaimed as the South's leading illustrator of juvenile books, James Rice is the illustrator and/or author of over sixty titles, including eighteen titles in The Night Before Christmas Series. There are almost two million copies of his books in print. He has taught art at the grammar-school, high-school, and university levels and enjoys talking to schoolchildren across the country about writing and art. He lives in Hico, Texas, with his family.