It is Christmas in Busytown. Mother Cat is knitting a stocking while Lowly Worm, Huckle Cat and Sally Cat argue about Santa and what he is bringing. Then the elves come down with something, Santa is short-handed with a workshop full of unfinished toys and no time left, and Lowly Worm gets asked to help.

He does help, and then he goes missing. Lowly! Where are you? calls Mrs. Santa. But Lowly can't be found anywhere, and Santa has to leave without him. That is where the book turns, and it is the reason a four year old sits still for the last third of it.

Richard Scarry's Busytown is the draw for parents who grew up on it: the crowded spreads where every mouse is doing its own small job somewhere in the corner, the fire irons and the pink hearth, the sleigh with its runners drawn like real ironwork. Children find things in it that nobody read aloud to them.

The cover says With Holiday Stickers and it means it: two pages of full-color stickers are bound in. This is the first story in a new Richard Scarry holiday series. Hardcover with paper-over-board covers and no dust jacket, 32 pages, 9.31 in square. Random House Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin Random House, published 28 October 2025. ISBN-13 9798217029310. Publisher age guidance: 4 to 8 years, preschool to grade 3.

More Busytown on the shelf: Richard Scarry's Christmas Mice is the Little Golden Book version of a Busytown Christmas, and Busy, Busy Town is the crowded one most families start with. Our other new Christmas picture book this season is Christmas Day Cheer.