Customer Reviews

Christmas at Fairacre: "Village Christmas", "Christmas Mouse" and "No Holly for Miss Quinn"

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Houghton Mifflin is releasing one of my all-time favorite books by the beloved Miss Read (pen name for Dora Saint). It's the hardcover version of Christmas at Fairacre. and it's simply delightful. This volume encompasses three of her other novels: No Holly for Miss Quinn, Village Christmas and The Christmas Mouse. No one in the world can write with such love and feeling about English village life like Miss Read.

Miss Read is the schoolmistress in Fairacre, and in this title she shares some of the best and most memorable Christmases of the English countryside. I always say: Miss Read can make polishing the schoolhouse stove exciting. And this volume is no exception.

As anyone knows, even the best laid plans often go awry. And thus it is in Fairacre during the Christmas season.

In Village Christmas we see that all the things about a person, or about in life, that can be seen as different and keep people separate, are really not important in view of the miracle of a Christmas birth. The birth of a little boy.

In The Christmas Mouse finds a visitor arriving on Christmas Eve. It is the meeting between an elderly woman and a young boy that will be long remembered.

In No Holly for Miss Quinn, Miss Quinn is the secretary to a Caxley businessman. She's extremely competent, unsentimental and chooses to spend Christmas without any fuss or family. But an emergency casts a new light on her thoughts of things when Christmas is viewed through the eyes of children. Oh, and there is an unexpected surprise.

And check out the other Miss Read releases by Houghton Mifflin. You'll be thrilled that you did. They are books that never go out of style. Their charm is sometimes because Miss Read writes about a simpler and gentler time. And that gives the reader such satisfaction.

Armchair Interviews says: Christmas at Fairacre is a must read.

Miss Read, now 97 years old, has written at least 30 books depicting English life in an era that is fast or has vanished.
Her books sparkle with a robust sense of humor, uncanny descriptions of delightful characters, all woven together with
a philosophy of "love thy neighbor" which is very refreshing in this world of violence and tawdry interests.
Anyone is the better for a session with Miss Read.

"The Christmas Mouse" is a "tail" to read aloud on a cold winter's night: "Behind the row of wallflower plants, close to the bricks of the cottage, scurried the mouse, nose twitching. It ran across the garden path, dived under the cotoneaster bush, scrambled up the mossy step by the disused wall, turned sharp right through the jungle of dried grass behind the garden shed, and streaked, unerringly, to the third hawthorn bush in the hedge. There, at the foot, screened by ground ivy, was its hole. It dived down into the loose sandy earth, snuffling the dear frowsty smell of mouse family and mouse food. Home at last!" - from the 1966 HC, pg 171. This story of a family finding hope and faith, and sharing charity with a mouselike stranger, will delight listeners of all ages.

The book was new (as described) and received very quickly. I would re-use the vendor.