A Christmas Carol: And Other Christmas Stories (Signet Classics) [Paperback]

Charles Dickens (Author), Frederick Busch (Introduction)

Book Description

Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 3 and up | Series: Signet Classics

From "A Christmas Carol," the beloved tale of Scrooge's transformation from humbug to philanthrope, to "A Christmas Tree," which gives a child's-eye-view of Victorian Christmas, to "Christmas Dinner," a celebration of a divided family's reunion, to the Christmas chapters from "The Pickwick Papers," the Christmas stories of Charles Dickens reserve a special place in readers' memories and hearts.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lisbeth Zwerger's glorious watercolors for Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol, first published in 1988, once again prove that she is as adept at creating the terrifying image of Christmas Yet to Come as she is showing the miraculous transformation of Scrooge.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

Grade 4 Up-This recording of A Christmas Carol is a pleasant way to spend a few hours during the holiday season. Although abridged, it retains the spirit and language of Dickens' original manuscript. Anton Lesser gives a superb performance as the narrator and the voices of the characters, especially when portraying the Cratchit family, the Christmas Spirits and the London dialects. All characters are easily understood. Appropriate music begins and ends each cassette. This enjoyable retelling would be especially appropriate for family listening and a special treat for English literature classes.
Pat Griffith, Schlow Library, State College, PA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Signet Classics; later printing edition (October 10, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451522834
• ISBN-13: 978-0451522832
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,184,337 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Joy To The World, December 26, 2005

By 

Bill Slocum (Norwalk, CT USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Christmas Carol: And Other Christmas Stories (Signet Classics) (Paperback)

If my experience is indicative of anything, more people think they have read Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" than actually have, probably because you know the story from osmosis nearly as soon as you register the concept of Christmas. But there's a lot of originality and strange twists to the familiar legend, as well as the satisfaction of having it delivered in Dickens' classic, unique prose style.

Published in 1843, "A Christmas Carol" is undoubtedly the most famous novella of all time, organized in five "staffs" or musical measures in keeping with the title. The story itself works as a melody, simple in structure but with a lot of enchanting detail and discursions, as it tells the tale of the rehabilitation of one Ebenezer Scrooge from "squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner" so mean as to deny his assistant coal to heat his workspace, to the very epitome of Father Christmas.

There's a lot of bits of business in the story that give it a freshness to the first-time reader, however well he or she thinks they know the story. Like the appearance of the first spirit, a fantastic sprite with "a bright, clear jet of light" emanating from its head. Or the trip Scrooge takes with the second spirit, of Christmas Present, where they speed across the seas to see Christmas celebrated by sailors and lighthouse keepers. One of the most haunting moments is when Scrooge, with the third, most ominous spirit, sees his own belongings picked over by a trio of low city dwellers in a "low-browed, beetling" shop, a lesson on materialism valid now as then.

The story of ghosts is thrilling, and its emphasis on home and hearth heartwarming, yet the secret to the story's appeal is its focus on Scrooge, presenting us with a radiantly foul character who over time slowly discloses his inner child, one not unlike Dickens himself who had to suffer the indignities of a workhouse because of insensitive parents.

"You fear the world too much," his younger self is told by a maiden he courts as she rejects him. "All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid approach."

The message of "A Christmas Carol" is the world Scrooge fears is a good place at heart, and rewarding to those who are good at heart. However humbug it might read here, Dickens' narrative itself dispels all doubt as gently and completely as a gust of wind does a cloud of smoke. And it's a fun read all the way through.

The Signet classic paperback edition I have includes three other Christmas writings from Dickens, "The Christmas Tree" from his "Reprinted Pieces" which captures the darkness beneath Dickens' warm sentiment for the holiday; "A Christmas Dinner," a sketch of a Victorian middle-class family gathering which in its short length is nearly as joyous a seasonal keepsake as the "Carol" itself; and finally, an excerpt of "The Pickwick Papers" which includes a ghost story involving merry-making goblins and an unfortunate sexton that clearly evolved into the later "Carol."

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars My Book Seems To Have Either been Edited Or Is A Defective Copy!, October 7, 2005

A Kid's Review

This review is from: A Christmas Carol: And Other Christmas Stories (Signet Classics) (Paperback)

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens has always been one of my favorite stories but unfortunately this one particular edition I read seemed to me to have been trimmed. Isn't this a short tale to begin with? But for some reason it seems to have been edited, either that or I got a defective book that had an accident on the printing press because it seemed that some words were missing either my mistake or they were trying to trim the story, anyway the story itself is very good and Ebenezer Scrooge and the visits he received by the ghosts are very interesting but I would look for another Christmas Carol book put out by a different publishing company and hope it hasn't been edited! BTW: I'm writing a review about the Signet Classic paperback edition or at least an old edition of it but who knows they might have fixed what was wrong with the edition I read and I notice that Signet has a new cover design and my old Signet Edition has a different cover design.