Author: Elizabeth Winthrop
Rating: 4/5 Stars
Reviewer: Christi
Summary: Elizabeth Winthrop creates an original legend about The
First Christmas Stocking, illus. by Bagram Ibatoulline. After a girl's mother
dies, she realizes that her mother's gift for knitting lives on in her, and
that her stockings create their own magic one that all the townsfolk wish to
share, by hanging a stocking on their own mantelpieces. Ibatoulline's artwork
evokes the long-ago, snowy rural setting and seems to be illuminated by
firelight.
Review: I found
this book beautifully sad. In the story the young (very poor) girl is taught by
her Mom to put her emotions into her knitting. When her Mom dies she knits and
thinks of her Mom. Eventually her knitting is known in town. When the richest
lady in town visits her and tells her she’d like her to knit her 6 stockings in
2 days she doesn’t think she can do it. But she wants to give her Dad a special
Christmas. She works day and night to finish. On the way to drop off the
stockings she see’s a young boy freezing in the cold with no socks, gloves, or
a hat. She has to make a decision. She gives all but one stocking to the boy.
Later at home she is very upset that she couldn’t get her Dad his special
Christmas. She hung that last stocking on the fireplace and when she woke up
Christmas morning it was filled with all the things she wanted for Christmas.
We realize in this book that to give is really to receive.
No comments:
Post a Comment