An Anthology of Christmas by Auriol Bishop

An Anthology of Christmas by Auriol Bishop is a random book I got from the library because it had Christmas on it. I wanted to read it during Christmas and because I didn’t look properly I didn’t realise that it is a book for children. This didn’t put me off and I read it. It’s not great, hence the 3 stars, but it was a very quick read, at 80 pages with lots of graphics.

This book is supposed to be about “Christmassy facts from the natural world” and the age bracket is 7 to 9. There is a good mix of mythology, pre-Christian and Christian, but some of the topics chosen are just strange – like cats. There are stupid questions like (I’m paraphrasing): “what would you have brought as a gift for Jesus?” So much for the factual part of book…

Most of the book is ok though, interesting, sharing the pre-Christian myths and customs in what I considered to be an ok approach. With myths it has to be clear that these are myths and not facts. I think the book also missed the opportunity to make some points on why people would spend so much energy on stuff like bringing big logs into their homes and burning them slowly, besides the tradition. A few comments on how traditions start and are kept, why people are doing them year after year, for generations, would have made the book so much better.

I think I would recommend the book if it was read with an adult, to add the nuances, but not for children reading on their own. It’s not bad, but it’s not great either.