Important Note: We previously reviewed “A Little Women Christmas”. That book contained 3 stories (“A Little Women Christmas”, “Rosa’s Tale” and “Tilly’s Christmas”), which are also found here in addition to several additional short stories from the same author. We won’t include the review of those stories here so please take a few minutes to read that review as well.
This is a clean book. Below is a list of the content we captured that Christian parents should be aware of.
Some of the older wording may be a bit challenging for some readers. One interesting aspect of this is the use of the words “queer” and “gay” in their original meaning. This is certainly something to explain to young readers as otherwise an entirely different understanding will come about.
The first story opens in a ward with very sick young men. It is a cheerful story, but at one point a man who is hurting says, “I wish I could die and be out of this misery”. During a story of incredible courage during a war, we hear a sad tale where someone sacrifices their life for someone else and freezes to death. During this tale we hear of a soldier’s arm being blown off and another is “shot bad”. There is a reference to bleeding and death. The author keeps her young audience in mind in how this is told, but it is important to consider for your child. Someone is said to be “despairing… on the point of stabbing himself” (expressing deep heartbreak).
The story “A Country Christmas” may be one to consider only for slightly older readers. It has a nice message and solid takeaways, but a few aspects may be over the heads of younger readers. You may want to read this one yourself first. In this story one character makes the unfortunate comment, “Have you lost your mind? Experienced religion? Or any other dreadful thing?” (This character and moment are not shown in a positive light, but still unfortunate implication here).
The following terms are used: “sad sack” and “fat”. At a beautiful charitable place that helps kids, one area is said to be for the “retarded” children (never used derogatorily). Someone says, “Don’t kill yourselves” (meant to be something like be smart/safe).
Tobacco is referenced as is wine and brandy (as a medicine). There are references to ghosts in a couple stories (never dark or scary, example is remembering ghost stories being told) and a reference to a witch. There are also quite a few references to ‘santa’, but this is never the focus of the stories. We can say the same thing concerning references to “magical” content that many Christian parents try to limit/avoid.