Simone Mets

A cute Christmas Story that sends the message that it is better to give than to receive. When there is a very bad storm in the North Pole that causes major damage to Santa's Workshop, Santa has to cancel Christmas wishes from him for the year. This causes a lot of anguish and Mr. Stump, who believes he is unstumpable, steps up to solve the problem. Unfortunately, he is finally stumped. It is the children, led by Ava, who figure out how they can answer the wishes of the children. There is the usual selfish, rich kid, who sees the light at the end of the story. I am disappointed by the illustrations. There were some background images, such as snowflakes and the children's giving hands, but being as the story is geared to children, I think illustrations could have added a lot to the story. I believe that anyone who reads this book whether alone or aloud to others, can gain from being reminded of the important message of this book. A good book for anyone who celebrates the Santa/gift giving aspect of Christmas without the religious aspect thrown in. The publisher generously provided me with a copy of this book via Netgalley.… (mere)

The morale of this story is a simple one: the greatest gift is giving, not getting. When a snowstorm destroys Santa's workshop, Christmas is in danger - at least, the part about the presents. Even a multimillionaire can't help solve the problem, which shows that money can't buy everything. Only when little girl Ava decides to help save Christmas and is joined by all her friends, Christmas can be saved at last.

While I appreciated the idea of "giving is better than getting", at the same time I'm conflicted about the still commercial aspect of the story - at least, there is no mention of living the Christmas spirit in other ways than through material gifts. No mention of the true meaning behind Christmas (no, I'm not overly religious), this story is all about children getting the toys they wished for. And what about those wishes that can't be fulfilled by Ava and her friends? Back is the multimillionaire, who of course has no problem providing the unavailable toys...

Of course, this story conveys its undeniably worthy message in a way that will be understood easily by little children, who - let's be honest - consider Christmas mainly a day of getting presents. Anyhow, I would have wished for a different solution, maybe by celebrating a different Christmas that year without the usual material gifts.

Regarding the illustrations, I liked the reduced style of the pictures, especially the background with the snowflakes. To show only the children's giving hands on a couple of pages was a nice idea, but it would have been more interesting to see those hands do different gestures, e.g. hold a wrapped gift at the end. Completely out of place was the ugly large bow used as a decorative element, which seemed completely out of place and like it was thrown in at the last minute to fill up some empty page space.

Overall, this book delivers an important message to little children in an easily understandable way, but older children and adults may consider it too simple.

(I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review)… (mere)