Customer Reviews

Country Angel Christmas

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Tomie dePaola's County Angel Christmas helps explain to children what the season is all about. In his wonderful style of writing and inticing pictures children see how the little angles want to help make Christmas special but no one will let them. Ari, Kira and Pip are so anxious to help yet the older angels are so busy making everything perfect they will not allow the small ones to help. St. Nicholas had the greatest idea for them and it reminds all who read the book the simple, pure message of Christmas.

Santa visiting a community of child angels in heaven is, as a previous reviewer said, "unsettling." (Are these all dead children? All alone? No families? Just each other. Like the Island of Lost Toys. Only children.)

The three littlest angels want to help prepare for a Christmas festivity, but none of the other angel-children will let them join in and be part of the community's efforts. They are shoo-ed away at every turn, one page after another. Very negative. And rather mean of the older angel-children to exclude the little ones. So much for a heavenly attitude.

At the end of the book, the three little angels pull the Star of Bethlehem across the sky. But this star shines by the power of God, not because of three little angels. It doesn't make sense. I would have liked to see the older angel-children repent and be sorry that they excluded the three little ones. There is no moral.

You might want to check this one out of the library before purchasing, in case you, too, feel that it is creepy. And kind of pointless.

A couple nights before Christmas, St. Nicholas asks the country angels (all kids with angel wings) to be in charge of "...the Christmas celebration for all of Heaven this year!"

No pressure. The last two years, the Archangels and the Heavenly Choir were in charge!

But there's no room for the three littlest angels, Ari, Pip, and Kira, to help.
"You'll make a mess." "You're too young to do anything." "You'll only tangle it up."

But St. Nicholas finds a special duty for them that ends up saving the celebration!

This story, full of child angels, was a bit unsettling for a "feel good" book. Maybe I'm so used to Santa being with elves instead of angels! Nice illustrations, but more jarring than I expected.

If you are planning on mailing this book, it is large. The dimensions say 10.5 x 10.5 in, so it is very square.