Three Christmas Books: A Boy Called Christmas by Matt Haig, Blue Christmas by Andrews, A Child's Chrismas in Wales by Thomas

Getting closer to being caught up on reviews! The following books were all purchases. I didn't receive any Christmas books for review, this year.

The tower -- the prison -- was a scary place. Yet, although it was horrid, it also had very nice comforting things written on the stone walls of the staircase, from its time as the Welcome Tower. Things like 'Welcome' and 'Strangers are just friends with weird faces' and 'Hug a human'.  [p. 128]

'An impossibility is just a possibility that you don't understand.' [p. 140]

Father Topo's words came back to Nikolas. You just close your eyes and wish for something to happen. Perhaps a wish was just a hope with better aim. [p. 152]


When Matt Haig said his new Christmas book, A Boy Called Christmas, was available for pre-order, I dashed off to look it up and discovered that it's not available in the U.S. But, of course there's a way around that: Book Depository. My copy arrived within days of its release.

A Boy Called Christmas by Matt Haig tells the story of Father Christmas. Nikolas is a poor boy in Finland (nicknamed "Christmas" because he was born on Christmas day) who owns only two toys: a wooden sleigh and a doll made of a carved turnip. When his father has to go away for two months, an abusive aunt arrives to care for him. And, when his father, Joel, doesn't return, Nikolas goes off to search for him with only his mouse friend Miika as a companion.

And, here, I must confess that I only remember bits and pieces of A Boy Called Christmas, which I liked but didn't fall madly in love with. I have a feeling I'll like it better upon the second reading because I didn't expect it to be quite so dark, but now that I've read it I want to read it, again. What I loved about the book was the way Haig took elements of the story of Father Christmas (or Saint Nicholas, Santa, etc.) that I've never seen explained elsewhere in a satisfactory way and did a marvelous job of spinning a magical, adventurous tale that explained those elements. There's also, of course, Matt Haig's trademark pithy wisdom, as you can see in the quotes above.

Recommended - While it wasn't a 5-star book for me, A Boy Called Christmas definitely has the feel of a new Christmas classic worth revisiting.

I bought my copy of Blue Christmas for a dollar when I ran into the local dollar store to grab my 2016 calendar. Naturally, I had to wander down the book aisle. I'm not a fan of Mary Kay Andrews, in general, but I figured at that price it was worth a chance.

Blue Christmas tells the story of Weezie Foley, a Savannah antiques dealer who is determined to win the local decorating contest. But, her first attempt is a disaster and then things start to go missing from her second display.

There's a bit of animosity between Weezie and her competition, a crazy Southern family dinner, a chef boyfriend who is constantly letting her down, the missing items, and a mysterious homeless woman who exchanges gifts with Weezie in what turns out to be a warm, sweet, funny holiday book.

Recommended - Maybe I'm better off reading Mary Kay Andrews in small doses. At 196 pages (including a couple recipes that sound just awful to me), Blue Christmas was just the right length and delightfully heart-tugging.

A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas was the selection for our December F2F book group meeting and a reread for me.

A tiny book that other members said was a poem, it does have a lovely rhythm but I still want to call it a short story. We chose A Child's Christmas in Wales primarily because it's short and several of us had already read and loved it. In December, we gather around a roaring fire (fortunately, it was just cool enough that a fire didn't sound appalling, although I sat too close and kept sinking farther and farther into the leather chair, threatening to fall asleep), sip eggnog or wine or both, discuss a short story or two, and then just talk. It was raining and the 30-mile drive was, at times, terrifying, but I couldn't bear to miss out and I absolutely love the book.

We mostly spent time reading our favorite passages of this autobiographical story about Christmas in Wales from a child's-eye view, talking about Dylan Thomas and how short but accomplished his life was, and comparing copies of the book. Everyone had a different copy. I like mine (shown at left). It's small and the illustrations are just like the one shown on the cover, black and white They look fitting to the time period. But, some of the other copies were more heavily illustrated, one with fabulous watercolor paintings portraying the wit and humor of the artist and the story.

My favorite passage is a quotation by a little boy:

"It snowed last year, too. I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea." [p. 22]

So very British.

Highly recommended - An enchanting, beautifully crafted tale of childhood that is often wickedly funny and one of my Christmas favorites.

I briefly reviewed A Child's Christmas in Wales in October of 2012.

©2015 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Christmas stories . . . in October? A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote, A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas, and Miracle & Other Stories by Connie Willis

I used to avoid seasonal books like the plague and some years I read hardly any (although I don't avoid them like the plague, anymore), but this year . . . well, I got suckered.  My F2F group leader asked me to come up with ideas for our December read.  Not one to go into such a request lightly, I asked for suggestions on Facebook and Twitter (my Facebook friends were the most helpful) then spent some time looking up Christmas reads on my own.  In the end, my group decided to read three stories from the same book we used last year.  

One could say, "Argh, what a waste of reading time!" But, no.  All three of the following books are really quite special, each in its own way.  I also have one Christmas e-book that I'll be touring, Lola's Secret.  We'll talk about that one when the time comes.  

A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote was originally published in 1956 and is a classic that was not written for children, although it is marketed as such.  A Christmas Memory is exactly what the title makes it out to be, the short memoir of a Christmas in Alabama when Capote was seven years old and living with elderly, distant cousins -- one of whom, Miss Sook Faulk, was his only friend.  I have the copy pictured at left, with a CD narrated by Celeste Holm and watercolor illustrations by Beth Peck.  

A Christmas Memory tells about a simpler time, when most everything was handmade, possessions were few and creativity was a necessity.  As the story opens, Miss Sook declares that it's "fruitcake weather" and then she and the boy she calls "Buddy" gather the ingredients to make 30 fruitcakes.  There's a lot to making such a huge quantity of fruitcake.  All year long, the two must scrounge and work to save every penny they can, just to purchase the ingredients.  

There's a sweet scene involving the acquisition of whiskey and then they dance and drink the last of the whiskey when they've finished (earning a fierce chewing-out from the other relations).  Next up is finding a tree, making the decorations and decorating.  The dog, Queenie, tries to eat an angel.  Then, they make gifts for each other.  They have so little money that they make each other kites and on Christmas Day they go outside to fly them.

The story ends with Capote's reflection that after that Christmas he was forced to leave the house and friendship behind as he was sent to attend a succession of military schools.  He dearly missed Miss Sook.  Queenie's death and then the slow deterioration of Miss Sook are described with touching affection.  

A Christmas Memory is a tender, beautifully written, emotional story.  I can't recommend it enough. I liked the illustrations in the version I purchased and enjoyed listening to the CD that came with it, as well.

A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas is also very short and, while marketed to children, it was the fact that several people wrote about the language being so lovely that they thought adults would appreciate it more than children that led to my choice to purchase the book.  

I was quite surprised to find that A Child's Christmas in Wales is actually quite funny.  The prose is definitely lyrical, which isn't surprising given the fact that Dylan Thomas was a poet.  Copyrighted in 1954, A Child's Christmas in Wales begins with the following sentence:

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.  

That made me laugh.  You can actually find the entire story online but I like the little book I bought.  It has lovely illustrations and it's worth hanging onto.  My copy was published by New Directions.  Highly Recommended.

In a slightly-related side note, Welsh author Simon Van Booy once told me his grandfather was Dylan Thomas's newsagent. The words "newsagent" and "Wales" paired together oddly make me crave the melty Welsh cheese I had in Llandudno, North Wales, many years ago.  

Miracle and Other Christmas Stories by Connie Willis caught my eye because it was not only close to the top of a list of recommended Christmas reads at Goodreads, but also happens to be a book by one of my favorite authors.  

Connie Willis is known as a sci-fi author, although at least one of the books I've read had more of a common scientific setting than the otherworldly type of location and storyline that typifies sci-fi.  

In Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, Willis shows off her knack for observing the absurdities of everyday life.  Some of the stories are humorous, some just a touch magical, one a time travel, one about possible alien invasion and one a mystery.  Willis said she wrote them with the goal of avoiding the usual sappy or depressing fare and I think she succeeded brilliantly.  I absolutely loved this book.  I had favorite stories, of course, but I really liked them all.  Again, Highly Recommended.  

I love this review of Miracle and Other Christmas Stories at Blogging for a Good Book.

So . . . even though it's only October and it seemed a little bizarre to sit down with Christmas stories, at first, I absolutely loved all three of the books in this post and plan to keep every one of them for rereading.  Usually, I just read Christmas stories and donate them, so that's a pretty unusual statement.  

©2012 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.