Reviews and Comments

I spotted this at the library and got it because we have Dogger by Shirley Hughes. I thought it would be more Christmassy, unfortunately it wasn't. Two very young Welsh children living in Liverpool in the 1930s, are left at home alone on Christmas Eve (their father died in a mining accident and their mother has no choice but to leave them at home while she works or shops). The children are frightened by a noise in the laundry and think it's a ghost, so they run out into the street crying where their neighbour Mrs O'Reily finds them, takes them home and looks after them until their mother returns. Their mother has previously told them not to speak to the O'Reilys as they are Catholic, but the children find their neighbours to be friendly and welcoming. The mystery of the ghost is solved, the mother returns and the kids are tucked up into bed. As they say their prayers the little boy asks if he can give thanks for the O'Reilys, and the girl agrees that they are a blessing. Their mother thinks for a moment, and then says "of course". And that's it. There was a whole two-page spread with lots of text describing the laundry with it's fire, copper and mangle, and how their mother has to wash, dry and iron clothes without modern appliances, which I guess was interesting enough. There were references to the sort of games children played in the early 20th century, and the fact that many people were out of work. The only thing that linked the story to Christmas was the "truce" that occurred between the neighbours - the children's mother has tea with Mrs O'Reily, who says she'll look after the children whenever needed, and they wish each other a happy Christmas.

So there wasn't much of interest to my kids and I had to explain a lot of concepts to them. I didn't even go into the religious issues alluded to in the story!

I decided to give the book 3 stars for the illustrations and the sweet well-written story, but as a Christmas book for young children I would only give it 2.