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“A Christmas Carol”: Spectacle with Substance

The snowy cobblestone street is packed with vendors, stalls, patrons, and carriages. Shawl-wrapped women brandish roasted chestnuts in bundles of newspaper, crying, “A shilling a piece.” Men in black silk top-hats push their way through the crowds, eager to return to their business while children scamper from one end of the road to another, laughing and shrieking in play. As the road widens and the market fades to the distance, the sound of the children’s boots smacking on cobblestone slows, then halts. A lone, hunched, and gnarled figure hobbles across the street, causing the children to retreat as quickly and … Continue reading →

Ben’s Christmas Carol – Toby Forward

In “Ben’s Christmas Carol,” we meet Tim and Ben, two mice from two very different worlds. To Tim, frost in the air means another day that he must fight for his survival. To Ben, it means that Christmas is coming, and a feast with lots of good things for him to eat. However, Ben doesn’t know just how blessed he is. Christmas is just another day, after all – another day of food and nibbling. There’s nothing all that special about it, really. When he passes Tim on the street, he doesn’t pay any attention to how cold and hungry … Continue reading →

Home for Navidad – Harriet Ziefert

“Home for Navidad” is a cute children’s picture book that tells us the story of Rosa, a ten-year-old girl who lives in a small Mexican village with her grandmother, her uncle, and her little brother. When Rosa wakes up at the beginning of the book, it’s still dark outside, but already her abuela is in the garden, beginning her daily chores. Then she comes in the house and begins to grind corn for breakfast, calling out for Rosa to get up. After breakfast, she goes to the fields with her Uncle Pancho. They pick ripe, yellow ears of corn until … Continue reading →

The Angel of Mill Street – Frances Ward Weller

Frances Rosalie Murphy was a little girl who lived on Mill Street. It was Christmas Eve, and she was waiting for St. Nicholas to come, but more immediately, she waited for her Uncle Ambrose. They couldn’t start the Christmas feast without him, and he hadn’t arrived yet. She waited at the window, but there was no sign of him. Every Christmas, he would tell her the story of Christ’s birth, bringing it to life with his beautiful voice. He told her of the angels that came to herald the newborn king, and she could almost see the angels in the … Continue reading →

The Night of Las Posadas – Tomie DePaola

The author’s note at the beginning of “The Night of Las Posadas” tells us that posada means “inn.” The story in this book is about an old Spanish tradition of remembering Mary and Joseph’s search for a place to stay the night Baby Jesus was born. High in the mountains above Santa Fe, the villagers have been busy preparing for Las Posadas. Lupe and her new husband, Roberto, have been chosen to portray Mary and Joseph, and Lupe’s aunt Angie couldn’t be more proud. Angie has been in charge of this night for many years and has trained the singers … Continue reading →

Week in Review: December 3rd-9th

We had a great week in Media Reviews. In case you missed out on this week’s blogs, here’s a rundown of everything we did. In “By Man Least Understood,” Tristi reviewed an LDS doctrinal book about forgiveness, repentance, and the need we all have for the Atonement of Jesus Christ. She then took a closer look at Barbara Kingsolver’s blockbuster hit, “The Poisonwood Bible,” the story of a preacher who took his wife and daughters to the Belgian Congo and the experiences they had when the Congolese decided to proclaim their independence from Belgium in the 1960s. We reviewed some … Continue reading →

The Man Who Walked the Earth – Ian Wallace

The setting is the 1930s, in the midst of the Great Depression. Our narrator is a young man whose father has set off to find work. The day he left, the mother told the son to set an extra plate at the table, in case someone came by for dinner. They lived out in the middle of nowhere, so such a thing would be unlikely, but he did as he was told. He put out an extra plate every single day for eight months, at every meal. They hoped that wherever their father was, someone had set a place for … Continue reading →