The Principal's Night Before Christmas

By Steven L. Layne and James Rice

Santa Claus spreads holiday cheer to a busy principal on Christmas Eve in this clever take on the children’s classic.

“’Twas the night before Christmas and all through the town

All the students and teachers had settled right down.”

Though everybody else has settled down for a long winter’s nap, poor Principal Swell has his hands full. With state-mandated paperwork, computers to fix, bus routes to unknot, not to mention discipline and field trips and all the concerned parents, it seems he’ll never get back home to his own family! Suddenly the school bell rings, and there stands a lively professor with a promise to fix, complete, or manage it all, since he’s already sent the teachers home from the mall. With a few final words of encouragement, he takes off in his school bus: “Merry Christmas to principals—holiday cheer! For they make Santa proud every day of the year!”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Sep 30, 2004
• ISBN: 9781455610693

Steven L. Layne

Award-winning educator Steven L. Layne serves as a professor in the Department of Education at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, where he teaches courses in children's literature. A former president of the Illinois Reading Council and a former member of the board of directors of the International Literacy Association, he travels the world as a literacy consultant, motivational speaker, and featured author. Through his work, he has garnered critical acclaim from USA Today, the International Literacy Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the Milken Family Foundation. Layne is the author of several titles in Pelican's signature Night Before Christmas Series, including Preacher's Night Before Christmas, The Teachers' Night Before Christmas, and The Principal's Night Before Christmas . He has also written two gift books, Verses for Dad's Heart and Verses for Mom's Heart, and three young-adult science-fiction thrillers, This Side of Paradise, Paradise Lost, and Mergers. Born in Temple, Texas, Ard Hoyt is the illustrator of more than thirty picture books, including the New York Times bestseller I'm a Manatee, by John Lithgow, and Steven Layne's Growing with Family Series. Hoyt lives in Arkansas on a small farm with his family.

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