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Collections and Retellings
Junior
Usborne
Hardback £7.99
ISBN: 0746058454
Reviewed by Gwen Grant
[Armadillo 6.4 Winter 2004]
It's O.K. We can relax. Christmas is sorted. Just get out that Christmas list and mark this book alongside every name. This is a great book, full of great stories, plus: it has a friendly shape for young hands, or, even for hands palsied o'er by the sickly ravages of time. The slipcover is of eye-catching brilliance and under it is a perfectly beautiful red cover all riven about with gold lettering. AND there's a red ribbon for keeping your place!
This is a most sensitively and joyously chosen range of stories. So, who is responsible for this very satisfying book? Inside, in tiny letters, it says: Editor - Ann Finnis. Your name should be on the cover, Ann Finnis. You've done well. There are old favourites retold along with new stories destined to become old favourites. The loveliest story, Shirley Climo's 'Cobweb Christmas', wherein an old lady prepares for the great day by sweeping the spiders out of her house, is one you_'ll want to read over and over. Making, baking and decorating, the old woman shares everything with the village children, until, tired, she falls asleep. As she sleeps, hundreds of spiders gather on her doorstep, all wanting to go inside and see Christmas for themselves. This is a story which satisfies every demand of romance and warmth.
The sparky humour of Helena Pielichaty's take on the school Nativity Play is shot through with a robust compassion as the lad who plays the Innkeeper struggles against his inclination to offer Mary and Joseph the best room in the house. Meg Harper's story of a small boy who, living on a farm with a hard-pressed Mum and having seen one lot of turkeys off to market, still wants a turkey for a pet, sympathetically reveals that quivering love for animals most children seem to have. Karen McCombie's two girls, Holly and Ivy, show how, under threat, sibling rivalry can turn into friendship and Julia Jarman handles a small boy's fear of strangers - which includes all red suited, white bearded old men - with real tenderness and perception.
Chris de Lacey's story of a teddy bear lost in space and returned by Father Christmas to its large, sad cosomonaut owner is both funny and touching, whilst Martin Waddell's little Irish Rosaleen, taking an abandoned Jesus from the school crib to meet with his Mammy in the crib of a local church is so magical, you have to read it twice to make sure it's still there. What else do we have? Oh, lots! Because this book is like the very best Christmas stocking, stuffed with good things right to the toe. And, as a bonus, 'Cobweb Christmas' has lines of teeny weeny spiders running along the lines of the story in the book. Fabulous!