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The Christmas Doll sounds like and gives the appearance of a feel-good, cinnamon and nutmeg Christmas story that takes place under a big Victorian Christmas tree. However, the book is a tale of loss and struggle that takes place in mid 19th-century London, where we meet ten-year-old Lucy Wolcott and her six-year-old sister, Glory, orphaned as a result of "the fever that swept the city in the year of 1848. The epidemic struck with such a vengeance, London's streets were left swarming with orphans." Almshouse to workhouse for five years, where Lucy makes up stories of their past to help Lucy sleep peacefully. A favorite story is of a beautiful doll named Morning Glory, hiding away somewhere to be reunited with Glory, though in reality their family could never have afforded a doll. These stories of a better past give the younger child hope living in the workhouse dormitory. In a second round of fever five years after the first, the girls' friends begin to sicken and die. When Glory develops a cough and is sent to the sick ward, the girls are split up. Together, that night, they flee the workhouse and the illness spreading within, out onto the Dickensian streets of London . . . . They spend some time squatting in different shops by night. Some brightness eventually comes to them in the form of piecework at the shop of a woman who sells dolls to wealthy families: by working there during the Christmas season rush, they enjoy the luxury of the simple life the dollmaker lives . . . . Thoroughly engaging book; shows the value of developing a skill and working hard while enduring adversity. Well-drawn characters. Text is printed in warm sepia ink on muted pages. The Grammar Police have gotten to this book with a warm sepia pencil, as unobtrusively as possible, substituting commas for periods before the "fanboys*," or conjunctions, and changing their capital letters to lower-case letters. Children's books do young readers a disservice by using "newspaper punctuation" in place of the more academic, traditional punctuation on which standardized tests are based. Whenever possible, correct English usage should be modelled for children in order that they easily achieve success in the basics. Studying usage as a topic in school does little to help young people learn with unconscious ease the things they are expected to know in school. The Grammar Police feel so strongly about this that they make corrections to jarring misuse of the conventions of language, in the tiniest matching marks they can. * for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so The only criticism of this book I need to make is that it does not exemplify, or model, the use of standard punctuation with conjunctions, for the reasons given above. Once someone learns how conjunctions are used and pays attention to using them preceded by commas (one needs to earn one's poetic license by learning the rules/guidelines, just like a driver's license), it opens the door to the why and how of the transition words, preceded by semicolons (and periods) and followed by commas. It would really sort out the confusion people have about when and why to place a comma where, resulting also in more confident writing skills.Read full review
I enjoyed this book. It was a moving sorrowful story about two little girls from the past trying to get by in a harsh world. I purchased it in the hopes of reading it alod to my second grade daughter. After reading the story I am glad I did not as it was a bit sadder then I was anticipating. Perhaps geared more towards middle elementary age children and not very young ones.It was a well written book and had a good plot, story-line and conclusion.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
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