Agenda wends its way throughout, but this Yuletide yarn often rises into the sparkling snowdrifts of fantasy.
It turns out that living with Father Christmas isn’t all cloudberry pie and jolly elves.
After escaping from the workhouse in The Girl Who Saved Christmas (2017), Amelia has joined Father and Mother Christmas in Elfhelm, the land powered by hope. Trouble is, she doesn’t quite fit in. As a human, she’s too large for the elf furniture, and she is terrible at school. For example, she just can’t fathom that “in elf mathematics the best answer isn’t the right one, it’s the most interesting” one. In this trilogy closer, trouble really starts when Amelia accidentally crashes a favored sleigh. The traitorous Father Vodol leaps at the opportunity to sabotage Amelia and the entirety of Christmas by setting up a newspaper called the Daily Truth in order to spread lies. At Vodol’s side are the Easter Bunny and his army of soldier rabbits. The Easter Bunny holds a festering grudge, his slogan being, “It’s time to make Easter great again.” When most of the elf population believes the fake news, Father Christmas, Amelia, and Mother Christmas must make manifest that amazing things can happen in an instant. This adventure is accompanied by cozily wonky illustrations, but militarized rabbits and the obvious political mirroring seem counterintuitive to the very heart of holiday mythology. All the human and humanlike characters are white.
Agenda wends its way throughout, but this Yuletide yarn often rises into the sparkling snowdrifts of fantasy. (Fantasy. 7-12)Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-78689-068-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Canongate
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2018
Plays to Rowling’s fan base; equally suited for gifting and reading aloud or alone.
A 7-year-old descends into the Land of the Lost in search of his beloved comfort object.
Jack has loved Dur Pig long enough to wear the beanbag toy into tattered shapelessness—which is why, when his angry older stepsister chucks it out the car window on Christmas Eve, he not only throws a titanic tantrum and viciously rejects the titular replacement pig, but resolves to sneak out to find DP. To his amazement, the Christmas Pig offers to guide him to the place where all lost Things go. Whiffs of childhood classics, assembled with admirable professionalism into a jolly adventure story that plays all the right chords, hang about this tale of loss and love. Along with family drama, Rowling stirs in fantasy, allegory, and generous measures of social and political commentary. Pursued by the Land’s cruel and monstrous Loser, Jack and the Christmas Pig pass through territories from the Wastes of the Unlamented, where booger-throwing Bad Habits roam, to the luxurious City of the Missed for encounters with Hope, Happiness, and Power (a choleric king who rejects a vote that doesn’t go his way). A joyful reunion on the Island of the Beloved turns poignant, but Christmas Eve being “a night for miracles and lost causes,” perhaps there’s still a chance (with a little help from Santa) for everything to come right? In both the narrative and Field’s accomplished, soft-focus illustrations, the cast presents White.
Plays to Rowling’s fan base; equally suited for gifting and reading aloud or alone. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-79023-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Centers on a cute, evergreen premise but suffers from minimal character development.
Some say that Christmas is the happiest time of year—but that’s not true for Jordan and Stevie Clementine.
The 10-year-old fraternal twins face yet another fractured holiday with not even a Christmas tree in sight. Their parents, born Billy Clement and Sam Valentine, dated briefly but never married and, as friends, have raised the girls, even taking on their melded last name. The sisters dream of a Christmas with all four Clementines together, singing carols and playing games, but musician Billy is on tour much of the year, and community center director Sam is especially busy with work around the holidays. The white-presenting girls spend each Christmas with their dad in the shabby family-owned motel, along with their uncle, aunt, and 15-year-old cousin (who ruined last Christmas by revealing the truth about Santa). This year, Stevie and Jordan hatch plans to get their parents to remember past happy Christmases and want to spend the holiday together. Fortuitously for the twins, a flood from a burst pipe at the local dog shelter brings dogs to the motel—leading cynophobic Billy and the girls to stay with Sam. The snowy, small-town Saskatchewan setting feels authentic, with many cultural details that add interest; however, the girls’ dual narrations are difficult to distinguish despite their opposite and rather one-note personalities and the supporting cast is similarly two-dimensional. Musician Quin’s solo debut, a series opener, features festive spot art by Ollerton.
Centers on a cute, evergreen premise but suffers from minimal character development. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9780374392345
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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