A Christmas Book

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Not the right book, but it's excerpted.
A Christmas Book, by Elizabeth Goudge

I really like Elizabeth Goudge; I wish my library had more of her books.  And a couple of the ones it does have are anthologies of bits taken out of larger books.  This is one of them, but there were at least some stand-alone stories as well.

There were two short stories, several excerpts from longer novels, and one account of the birth of Christ that seems to be taken from a longer work (perhaps for older children?) that probably covered the entire life of Christ.  The short stories were very nice, and I admit that I skipped some of the excerpts if it seemed like they wouldn't make enough sense, but I read some of them too--I quite enjoyed the ones from City of Bells and Pilgrim's Inn, which I've read.  Then the story of Jesus' birth was very well-done; I'd let my kids read it.

Some are funny, some are melancholy, most revolve around the lives of churchpeople (rather like Barsetshire books that way).  Though the excerpts annoy me a bit, I can see where if you were a big Goudge fan and had already read all of her books, you'd love to be able to visit your favorite Christmas scenes.

This was a lovely book to read at the beginning of the Christmas season.

Comments

  1. hopeinbrazilDecember 19, 2012 at 3:38 AM

    I am a Goudge fan and didn't know about this collection. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I popped in because I heard you were connected to the Classic Children's Literature Challenge.

    ReplyDelete

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