Mrs Christmas

Author                           : Penny Ives

Age range recommended : 4+

Theme                            : Christmas spirit

Opening lines – 

Last Christmas, there was a near calamity. One morning in late December, Father Christmas woke up and found that he felt quite ill.

Introduction and Synopsis –

In the run up to Christmas, Mrs Christmas finds to her horror that Father Christmas and his reindeer have fallen  sick! They are all covered in spots and it doesn’t seem like they would be able to deliver all the gifts to the children that Christmas. Luckily Mrs Santa Claus is around and decides to take things into her own hands. A multitude of letters to read, toys to be made and delivered on time - would she be able to do it all in time? 

Why did my caterpillar and I like this book?

ME -

There is a Mrs Christmas and she is a hero! It has all the feel good ingredients – beginning with everything poised for a catastrophe, Mrs Christmas works systematically and tirelessly from reading all the letters to getting the toys ready in the workshop. When faced with the bigger predicament of how to deliver all the toys without the reindeer, she beautifully creates a flying machine out of resources available at home. Brilliant! Multiple illustrations are shown for the litter reader to notice and marvel at the efforts taken by Mrs Claus to ensure that Father Christmas’s hardwork all year do not go to waste and innocent children are not deprived of their Christmas joy. The story ends with Father Christmas giving his lovely wife a wonderful surprise the next morning!

The book captures the Christmas spirit beautifully. By way of pictures, the author hasn’t really left out any details -  there are picture frames of Santa and his reindeer in Santa’s house, Mrs Claus wears furry slippers at home and  lipstick too, and of course, there are lots and lots of toys everywhere. Children will be in awe of Father Christmas’s home. What appealed to my little one the most was that Mrs Christmas worked around a solution and helped Father Christmas at his job when he couldn’t. What can be a better judgement of the spirit of giving and sharing?


MY TINY CATERPILLAR - 

She loved the pictures and Santa's house. She generally loves listening to Christmas stories and Santa Claus is her favourite person. It was precious for her to see that Mrs Christmas worked so hard to ensure that all children get their gifts on Christmas day. It also amused her to see how Mrs Christmas made a contraption to fly on, using her bi-cycle, a vacuum cleaner, an umbrella and other everyday stuff!

Online link -

We could not find any online link to the story. 

The cocoon rates it -

3/5  

It is a story which spreads joy in the festive season. In that it succeeds well. It might not be a spectacular Christmas story in itself, but what gave it an edge was the introduction of Mrs Christmas as the heroine who saves the day. We recommend.