From Publishers Weekly
Despite its soaring subject matter, this version of the story behind one of the season's most memorable songs fails to distinguish itself in the genre. After discovering that the organ is broken, an Austrian church organist and priest collaborate on a guitar-accompanied carol for Christmas Eve, moving the congregation with its quiet beauty. The facts are affecting and Hooper's (The Christmas Drum) telling is able enough, but Kubiak's (The Nativity) oil paintings are oddly static. Ages 6-up.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
K-Gr 3-The night before Christmas Eve in Oberndorf, Austria, 1818, organist Franz Gruber discovered that the church's organ was broken. Later that night, the young village priest, Father Joseph Mohr, brought him a poem and asked him to write a melody in time for the Christmas Eve service. So was born one of the world's most popular carols, "Silent Night." Hooper offers a simple, satisfying, and slightly fictionalized telling of the story. The gentle tone of the narrative and the warm, realistic oil paintings reflect the mood of the carol itself. Lyrics, music score, and one page of author's notes on how the carol's origin was researched are included. Both Margaret Hodges's Silent Night: The Song and It's Story (Eerdmans, 1997) and Linda Granfield's Silent Night: The Song from Heaven (Tundra, 1997) offer a more detailed history of the song's popularity, its historical significance in several wars, and what happened to the composers. Of the three, Hooper's title is the best read-aloud and gives a more interesting depiction of the origins of the carol.-M. W.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
