Christmas in Story for LDS Readers
Bickerstaff, George. 1973. Christmas in Story for LDS Readers. Bookcraft.
Rating:
1
Summary:
The book is a collection of stories, both fictitious and historical, surrounding Christmas. The stories are very diverse, ranging from one about a man that wants to kill someone else but decides against it to cute one-page stories about doing nice things for Christmas.
Review:
Strange/eclectic combination of stories.
Well, some of the stories are poorly written and others are just plain bizarre. I guess that’s fine for a book that is specifically designed to be a compilation of stories, but you definitely get the impression that there is no real order to how the stories were chosen and very little thought given to quality. They don’t seem to share any common themes other than just having something remotely to do with Christmas. Some of the stories are actually more disturbing than they are interesting.
There are also a lot of stories ‘worshipping’ Joseph Smith Jr., the founder of the Mormon Church. Of course, any Mormon would argue that Mormons don’t worship Joseph Smith, but the way he is revered in some of these writings you really begin to wonder. If Jesus is the reason for the season…?
Overall, there have to be some better books with stories about Christmas that do the two things this book doesn’t – (1) tell good stories; (2) tell good stories that don’t necessarily involve religion (not that involving religion is a problem for most people, but it kind of is for me). You can’t really waste your money on this one because, frankly, it isn’t available anywhere (unless you want to buy my copy). So, you kind of have to look for something else.
