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Busy Betty & the Perfect Christmas Present. By Reese Witherspoon. Illustrated by Xindi Yan. Flamingo Books. $19.99.

     Ah, the joys and stresses of gift-giving. Busy Betty feels them more intensely than other kids ages 3-7 do, since she feels everything more intensely, which is what makes her so endearing even though she is so often over-the-top. OK, always over-the-top. Of course, Christmas gift-giving can be somewhat over-the-top itself, so a Busy Betty book with a Christmas focus makes perfect seasonal sense. And Reese Witherspoon’s tale-telling, matched with Xindi Yan’s exuberant illustrations, proves more than equal to the mixture of mischievous and heartwarming activities that defines all three (so far) Busy Betty books.

     This third one has Betty bustling about with her usual enthusiasm (ok, overenthusiasm) in her determination to come up with the absolutely perfect gift for everybody in her family, including the often-put-upon dog, Frank. Reacting to her father’s cliché about making lemonade when life gives you lemons (Betty has just realized she has no money and so can’t buy gifts), Betty remembers her summertime lemonade stand and thinks she can use it again, until spoilsport older brother Bo points out that it’s too cold and snowy for anyone to wander around looking for lemonade. So Betty, never slow to pivot to something new, decides to keep the “stand” idea but turn it into something Christmasy – by selling cookies. Then it turns out that everyone in the family suggests a different type of cookie, but that’s fine as long as Betty and best friend Mae can make them all with tons and tons of sprinkles.

     Which they promptly toss all around the house, as shown on a page where there are so many sprinkles that at one point Mae has to sit under an umbrella to ward off the sprinkle flood being dumped by Betty (ok, how is this ok, even in an over-the-top way?).

     Well, Betty and Mae, clearly unpunished and apparently without doing any cleanup, quickly redecorate their lemonade stand and turn it into a Christmas-cookie stand, which promptly attracts absolutely nobody since the weather is too cold and windy and snowy for people to be out-and-about. So Betty concludes that the way to get customers is to make it seem they already have them, and she and Mae promptly create a whole batch of snowpeople, most of them larger than the girls themselves (ok, those are adult snowpeople). They even make a snowdog (on which Frank promptly relieves himself, in one of the book’s funniest illustrations).

     Frank soon looms large (especially for such a small dog) in the story: first, Betty and Mae sing a Christmas carol whose lyrics they do not quite remember – the first line comes out “Frankie the wet-nosed doggy.” And then Frank, whose has been uncomfortable wearing the antlers that Betty has put on him, manages to get those projections entangled in the cookie-stand decorations, which leads to a predictably disastrous (ok, and predictably hilarious) mess after the stand topples, all the cookies fly everywhere, and only Frank, happily gobbling them up from the snow, is satisfied.

     But it turns out there is one cookie left on display, and just then Bo happens by and grabs it, and that gives Betty the solution to her Christmas-gift dilemma: she makes cookies for the family rather than for sale, modifying them so each person gets the type of cookie for which he or she expressed a preference earlier in the story. Problem solved! Presents “straight from my heart” suitably delivered! Even Frank gets a bone-shaped treat (ok, presumably a made-for-pups dog biscuit rather than one of Betty’s cookies). And the only thing parents need be concerned about after all the warmth and amusement of Busy Betty & the Perfect Christmas Present is what to do when real-world kids, determined to enjoy the holiday just as much as Betty does, decide that they are going to scatter bottles and jars and other containers of sprinkles all around the house without any consequences whatsoever except being considered adorable (ok, adults: resolution of that issue is up to you).