The Holly Boy . . .

With so much happening during the month of December, I didn't even come close to writing as many Christmas themed posts as I had wanted. Please indulge me in one more!

This has to be one of the strangest posts I have ever done.  While researching last year about a book I acquired called "The Holly Boy", I came up empty handed for my 1955 copy of this book, except for a very interesting comment on a blog post that you will see below (highlighted in green). The post was a quick review of a newer version of the book "The Legend of Holly Boy", the most interesting part came in the comment section.

Keep that in mind... but first let me introduce you to someone you have probably never heard of, The Holly Boy. Written by Frank Latino and illustrated by Beatrice Grover. Published by Helen Cole, Inc. 1955. This book seems to be the first edition.

Try as I might and even checking different search engines, I never found anything about The Holly Boy, it continually came up The Legend of the Holly Boy. I did not find one other image or mention of the book that I have in my possession. If any of you readers have information about this book or have ever heard or seen it, please share.  Let me tell you a bit about the story.

This is actually a very sweet Christmas book about a girl named Linda, who wonders about the happiness of a holly wreath hanging in her window.  She laments that the holly was alive, but now has been cut up and tied into a shape of a wreath and how could it possibly be happy? To her surprise the holly wreath comes alive and forms itself into the shape of a boy. He tells Linda not to feel sorry for him.

The Holly Boy continues to explain to Linda why he is the happiest he has ever been. After he feels he has convinced her that he is fine, the Holly Boy whirls himself back into the shape of a wreath and is back hanging on her window again. Below are the Holly Boy's last words to Linda.

It is a wonderful feel good message that we can all embrace during the holiday season. Of course we do not want to go down the path of where the Holly Boy ended up after the holidays, well not with Linda anyway.

We all know that he ended up in the fireplace, burn pile, or compost heap. So that is the basic story, but it didn't end there. Researching on the internet brings up all sorts of interesting tidbits.  As I mentioned earlier I came across this unusual post and comment.

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Below is the comment from a reader of the now idle blog Here We Are.

jpholly said...

    I Am The Holly Boy....!
 

  In the late 1950s, my family (our last name is Holly) lived across the street from a man named John Jones and his family in Hackensack, New Jersey. Mr. Jones owned a recording studio that was used mostly for recording commercial jingles. Mr. Jones had a group of musicians that he worked with, including a jingle writer, an arranger, singers, instrumentalists etc. Hoping to cash in on the tremendous commercial success of such 1950s holiday songs as "White Christmas," "Silver Bells," "Let It Snow," etc., Mr. Jones decided to produce a Christmas record. Since we lived across the street and I was often playing at their house with their two sons who were approximately my age, he got the idea of calling the song "The Holly Boy." The words and music to the song were written by Frank Latino, whom I believe was one of the jingle writers he worked with. Here's the amazing part - the arranger and conductor of the music was a 27-year old trumpet player and studio musician named Quincy Jones. He was no relation to John Jones, the studio owner, but he is the same Quincy Jones who has since won 27 Grammy Awards!

    The song was released as a 45-RPM record called "The Holly Boy." It was sung by a very good singer named Betty Cox, who was at the time the substitute "Chanpagne Lady" on the Lawrence Welk Show.

    Frank Latino also wrote a story to go with the song that was published as a children's book - the book that is the subject of this blog post. The song never became a hit, but the book somehow caught on and is still in print and can be purchased through Amazon, etc., almost 50 years after its initial publication. In 2002, the book was used as the basis of a holiday movie called "A Light In The Forest" starring Lindsay Wagner, Edward Albert and Carol Lynley, among others. Unfortunately, the movie was not much of a success either. Old copies of the record are occasionally available for sale on ebay. If anyone wants to hear the song, I'll post a link.

    Sorry to be so long-winded, but that's my story....!

    John Peter Holly
    October 22, 2008 4:37 PM

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Wondering if any of this could be true, I did a bit of research.
jpholly did use the proper title of the original book, which is "The Holly Boy".

The book was published in 1955, so it would have been mid-50's that he lived next to the writer, not late 50's. Which would have made the book over 50 years old, not almost.  The rest of the story seems to check out. Sure enough, I was able to locate the song done by Betty Cox, listen to it by clicking here.  Last night it worked and I listened to the song, for some reason I keep getting an error message today. Aarggh! Try this home video on Youtube. It's an amateur, but pretty funny!




This is the 45 record ....

Source: rateyourmusic.com via CraveCute on Pinterest

But wait, there's more.  Is there a John Peter Holly?  Well, yes there is. There is a music conductor by the same name who lived in the New Jersey area for many years. It looks as though he may have relocated to MA. He may or may not be the same person.

Maybe he will show up and add a comment to my blog someday.

I would love to hear if any of you avid readers, vintage and Christmas 

collectors have ever heard of this book!