Twas the night before Christmas, and you already know the next line. Clement C. Moore wrote it in 1822 and it is the single reason most of us picture Santa the way we do. This is the 1949 Little Golden Book version of it, with Corinne Malvern's paintings, and it is the one a lot of adults are actually remembering when they say they want a copy of this poem.

Malvern was a fashion illustrator and a Ladies' Home Journal art editor before she painted Little Golden Books, and her Santa has weight and mischief in him rather than the flat greeting card version. The pages are printed with the glossy finish the line is known for, so the reds stay loud under a lamp.

Twenty-four hardcover pages with the gold foil spine, sized to read aloud to a room. Cheap enough to give three of, good enough that one of them gets kept.