Canongate Books have got themselves a Christmas hit in my opinion…who could resist this?
I was fortunate enough to receive a copy via NetGalley so have to admit to it feeling rather strange to be reading a book about Father Christmas in October. That oddness aside, I was entranced by this and the reaction of my six year old to it as we kept going for ‘just one more chapter’ at bedtime.
In this story, there is a lot to appeal to adults. Father Christmas is having a tough time of it, as the magic that allows him to do his job is running out; Elfhelm is under attack from trolls and there’s a very real chance that the impossible will happen and Christmas will have to be cancelled. Alongside these events, we see young Amelia Wishart – the girl who saved Christmas one year with her belief – struggling to maintain her hope as she is orphaned and taken to the workhouse under the eye of the deliciously nasty Mr Creeper.
Set against the backdrop of Victorian Britain, there’s knowing nods to Dickens’s writing and the writer himself actually turns up on a number of occasions to help things along.
For my son, there was a great blend of magical elements with slapstick humour and some hints of scariness, which combined perfectly to have him thoroughly engaged throughout our bedtime reading sessions.
While we both thoroughly enjoyed the story for quite different reasons, this is a charming Christmas story. Both of us were betting on exactly which of the characters we were introduced to in this novel might be the focus of next year’s instalment.