Re-read: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Barbara Robinson
"The Herdmans were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world. They lied and stole and smoked cigars (even the girls) and talked dirty and hit little kids and cussed their teachers and took the name of the Lord in vain..." Their mother works double shifts to make ends meet, their father left home long ago, and they move through elementary school, as the narrator states, "like those South American fish that strip your bones clean in three seconds flat..." Luckily, they don't go to church, the one place the local kids have any peace.
Well, until our narrator's little brother tells one of the Herdman kids that the minister gives them snacks at Sunday School. And they just happen to show up the day the yearly Christmas Pageant is being cast.
This is a fast, funny, but ultimately poignant story about a misfit bunch of neglected kids who cause chaos but prompts at least one person, our unnamed narrator, and hopefully the reader, to take a new look at the Nativity story. Even though this story was published in the 1970s, it has a timeless quality that still makes it relevant nearly 40 years later. A great before-Christmas read.
Re-read: The House Without a Christmas Tree, Gail Rock
In Alan Shayne's book A Double Life, he talks about how the classic 1972 Christmas special was conceived; asked by CBS to concoct a Christmas tale and wanting to present one that hadn't been done before, Shayne took a prompt given to him by a co-worker, a Nebraska native named Roberta Gail Rock. In the process he asked Gail to write down everything she remembered about her home growing up: how it looked, how her grandmother and father looked and acted, what her schooldays were like, and she did.
I have a feeling most of those notes Gail took made their way into this terrific novelization of the television production, for not only is the script told pretty much verbatim, but she adds what the best media novelizations do: delightful details that flesh out Addie Mills' everyday life in 1946, especially with much more description of the critical character of her grandmother and her eccentricities. Little pieces of business like Carla Mae's home life, Addie and Carla Mae making their names out of the letters in alphabet soup, etc., just provide homey detail to an already touching story: for years 10-year-old Addie has wished to put up a Christmas tree in her home, just like her friends, but her distant father thinks it's a waste of money. This year Addie's request will bring things to a head—but in a way that will change things forever.
This is one of my two favorite Christmas specials ever, and the novel just adds richness to already rewarding tale. Thanks, Gail Rock!
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