One of my favorite things about dragging our holiday decorations up from the basement is bringing out our holiday books. We’ve saved almost all of the Christmas books we’ve purchased for our children since they were babies. We have books that range from toddler holiday books to books that grown ups can read.
Even though our children are older it’s still fun to read their favorite Barney holiday book and other books from when they were younger. I think my husband and I read them more then the kids too. For us its a bit of nostalgia – remembering when our children used to believe in Santa Claus and how excited they were to crawl up on our laps to read them the stories. Sigh… I miss those days.
I’m always happy to add to our holiday book collection. Each year I seem to add at least one book.
This year we added the book The Story of Everdream: The Christmas Witch, to our collection.
The idea of a Christmas witch seemed a bit odd to me. Witches are typically not very nice (in stories – I don’t mean real life witches). When I think witch I think about the witch from Wizard of Oz. She certainly doesn’t evoke visions of sugarplums and candy canes.
I always keep an open mind about things so when I was sent the book to review I tried not to focus on the idea of a “witch”.
The Story of Everdream: The Christmas Witch features a girl name Holly. While out playing in the woods one day she meets a wonderful little fairy who comes from a magical place called Everdream. Everdream is a place that exists in the clouds. Fairies and elves live in Everdream.
Holly was lucky to go someplace where other people have never gone before – the Everdream. Once there she learned that the fairies and elves helped Santa every Christmas. There was even a special door that Santa and the residents of Everdream used to get to and from the North Pole. The idea of the door reminded me of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. 🙂
In the story Santa has a sister name Jellis. Jellis was very JEALOUS (get the name connection?) of her brother. She wanted to be in charge of Christmas, instead of her brother Santa.
Jellis became very bitter. She hated everything and everyone who lived in Everdream. So she left Everdream to go live with the magical gnomes and learn their magic (which wasn’t good magic).
Jellis later returned to Everdream when her magical powers were stronger and sealed up the door that lead to/from the North Pole. Without this special entrance Santa would be unable to deliver gifts on Chrismas Eve, meaning there would be no Christmas. The only way to have the door re-opened would be to allow Jellis to take over Christmas, and take away all of Santa’s duties.
Will the door ever be opened? Will Jellis end up ruling Christmas? What will happen to Christmas if the door is never re-opened? To find out you’ll just have to pick up a copy of the book.
The story was a lot different then other holiday books I have read over the years. It wasn’t the typical “holly jolly” book that I’m accustomed to. There was a bit of sci-fi, drama, whimsy and suspense in this book.
I liked the story because it had a different twist on Christmas. My son liked the story too. My daughter was not fond of it, but it might be becasue she’s older then the target demographic. I would think this book would be geared more towards children 7-11, maybe younger.
The book is a little over 40+ pages long. There is a lot of text squeezed into the pages, so it’s more then a bedtime story. Unless a parent would want to read half of the story one night and the rest of the story the next night.
The illustrations were charming. They looked like they were done with a colored pencil which is different then the way many other books are illustrated.
The Story of Everdream: The Christmas Witch is written by Robert L. Welsh. It is actually Book One, so I would assume there will be other books in this series.
You can purchase a copy of the book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other retail locations.
Kimberly
*I received a free copy in order to do this review. There was no compensation. The opinions expressed are my own.
Betty Baez says
sounds like a good book not the all holly jolly type of book
courtney b says
what a cute story for kids!:) my daughter would love it. Thanks for sharing
Alison says
This sounds like such a cute book!! And I love faeries so I’m going to be picking this up! Thanks for sharing your review!!
trishden says
You know it’s funny how even the grown up kids remember their books over the years and carry a nastalgic attachment to them. This year I decided to get rid of some of the Christmas decortations that have not been put out in a few years and I asked my college kid if I could give the Christmas books to his much younger cousins and he said no. I guess he wants them for any future children. That’s fine. I actually like it. This story book might be a good one to give to his cousins. Thanks for the review.
Jessi Likey says
My mom has a collection of Christmas books from my childhood too. The sad thing is that she let the young grandkids get a hold of them this year so some of them have been torn apart. I’m very attached to them so it was upsetting.