Customer Reviews

Zanna's Gift: A Life in Christmases

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First off, this book is NOT long! It spans a mere 144 pages and has a rather large font. However, even in it's extreme brevity there are some genuinely touching moments and it's fine way to spend some snowy winter afternoon.

A friend gave me this book simply because my daughter's name is Zanna. I read it and fell in love with it. It speaks about loss and grief and their connection to love. The Pullman's are like so many families in America who left innocence behind too early. But in them there is the hope of things to come, the love of what was, and the joy for what will be. Read it today and start thinking of how you can leave a gift like Zanna's for the world to love.

Oscar Scott Card, under a pseudonym, Scott Richards, made a small novelette called Zanna's Gift, a Christmas story told from the view of the late 1930s and spans through present day.

It's the story of the Pullman family who have a family of three teenage boys and one four year old girl. The girl, Zanna, loves to draw and it seems her big brother Ernie is the only one who can decipher her scribblings.

The story starts off in a shocking way, when the boy, who is built up by the author to have so much promise and life, dies in his sleep! Wasn't expecting that!

The little girl had just drawn a picture for Ernie for Christmas, and when she finds out he has died, she's devastated. No one will know what her picture means! Even her parents can't tell what she drew.

The years roll on, little Zanna deals with her grief, and eventually it is revealed she is a twin of another girl who died at birth.

The author keeps up these shocks, one after another, until you're just torn apart by the grief. Gets pretty heavy.

Scott Richards though then loses his way a bit. The development of secondary characters, such as Zanna's nephew, doesn't really go along with the rest of the theme of grief and redemption. He's just sort of "bad" and somehow that plays out.

The whole book shows Zanna growing up, having kids of her own, her own dealings with her brothers and her painting that she drew at four. It's faded now, and framed, but becomes part of a family tradition for Christmas, and out-lives her.

The story picks up again with her niece Betty, who suffers from debilitating polio. My goodness, how much grief and despair can this family take??

The story is somewhat unrealistic, but the themes of grief, despair and conquering it will nurturing love is throughout the book.

Makes a great little story for anyone suffering from these things and gives some hope, and does fit into the full meaning of Christmas.

Not bad, Scott!

For Oscar Scott Card's science fiction books:

Xenocide T3
The Ender Quartet Box Set: Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind

And one of my fav alternate history stories:

Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus

ZANNA'S GIFT: A Life In Christmases, by Scott Richards (148 pgs., 2008). This Christmas novella opens right before Christmas 1938. A little girl has just lost her adored oldest brother. How she helps him be remembered over the years by her immediate family & then, even by the children of the children & then by their grandchildren is the gist of this story. It's about love, faith, family, innocence, trust, joy, sadness, happiness, siblings, loss, gratitude & the true meaning of what is important in life. I cried & cried throughout this book. The ending is exquisitely heart touching. I am a sucker for these tear jerker Christmas novellas!