A Fun Christmas Read
Is it too late to share a Christmas book review? I had this review written before Christmas, but didn’t get it posted until now. Whoops! Let’s just call it getting a head start…a really big head start…on next year.
“’You can save her,’ Amelia said, feeling the hope rise up inside her. She knew her hope could help him. She knew now that this was how the whole universe could have so much magic inside it. By the simple act of hope.”
The Girl Who Saved Christmas by Matt Haig is a story about Santa Claus (sorry, actually, it’s Father Christmas), but it’s also a story about the importance of hope. Father Christmas is having trouble with the magic he uses to deliver gifts to boys and girls around the world because there is not enough hope in the world. In 1800’s London, a little girl named Amelia faces the death of her mother and possibility of life in a workhouse. Hope is in short supply. Matt Haig weaves the two plots together until it’s hard to say who rescues whom—Father Christmas or Amelia.
I had a little trouble getting into the book at first, especially in the beginning of Amelia’s story (I’m looking at you, poor-little-orphan-plot). But the pace picks up fairly quickly, Charles Dickens makes an appearance, pivoting Amelia’s plot from worn-out to tongue-in-cheek brilliance, and Haig delivers on the promise of his success. I grew to love the characters, was eager to turn the page, and was laughing at Father Christmas’s encounters with notable persons from the time period.
This is a fun, humorous read that’s easy to pick up a week before Christmas. (Although if you are reading it aloud to your kids, I’d suggest starting earlier. There were 311 pages in the hardbacked version I checked out of the library and lots of chapters!) This book is also the second in a series and follows A Boy Called Christmas. I have not read that one and was still able to follow everything just fine, although I think reading the first book might have helped me feel more engaged with the characters.
Bottom Line: The Girl Who Saved Christmas is a heart-warming, fun family read, reminding us that hope has its own kind of magic: encouraging the people around us.