There is quite a bit more here than you would expect, especially given all of the glowing reviews of this short, “cute” Christmas story. We dig into the details below.
The book starts with the line”The Herdmans were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world”. Given this, you would probably expect them to be the focus of this concerning content section, but from a Christian perspective, this is not the case. There is no question the Herdmans are wrong, and young readers will see this. The most potentially negative influence from this book actually comes from the main character and her family. We see the story unfold through the eyes of a young girl and her folks who are Christians… and sadly they look a lot more like what the world pictures as “church people” than those who look like they have been impacted by a relationship with Jesus. Dad has no desire to go to the Christmas pageant, even though his wife is leading it and daughter is in it. The family as a whole shows no reverence for God and this especially applies to the story of the first Christmas. Comments are made multiple times, such as referring to it “just the Christmas story” and saying that reading through the Bible when practicing is “a real pain in the neck to most of us because we knew the whole thing backwards and forwards”. As we see with Jesus’ interaction with the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders, this religion without relationship, church without Jesus, activity without faith is a much bigger danger to our children than even the worldliness we see around us. Keep in mind, this would be totally different if, at the end, we see repentance and a new excited faith, but that is not the case. This is never shown as wrong and that is a sad and sneaky dangerous image to put in front of our kids. Even at the end we see a comment that reflects this, “usually by the time we get to ‘Silent Night’ I was fed up with the whole thing”.
That is not to say there isn’t content to be aware of concerning the Herdmans. The author makes sure that we understand her statement at the start is accurate. We are quickly told they lie, steal, smoke cigars, ‘talk dirty’, hit little kids, cuss their teachers, take the Lord’s name in vain and start fires. One is said to only learn ‘dirty words’ and secrets about everybody. It is mentioned that dad ran out of the family, but makes a really sad follow-up that ‘no one blamed him’. Mom would rather work than be home with the kids (followed by a similar comment). Given that they know nothing of God and faith, when at church they think nothing of deface images in the kids Bible, steal from the offering plate, drink communion wine.
There are a couple of times young readers will read something concerning about the Herdmans that is actually not true. The main character, upon hearing they want a library card, immediately assumes Imogeen “wanted to get one of the dirty books out of the (library) basement, which is where they keep them”. Later there is untrue gossip going around that “all the kids talk about is sex and underwear”.
The book uses the word ‘fat’ quite a few times, but surprisingly it is from the mouth of the main character. There is a mention of a “girl who weighed about a ton, even had fat eyes” and a mention of “fat camp”.