The Birds' Christmas Carol :: Education by Design Store

Customer Reviews

Thank heaven for frugal grandmothers

2009-02-24
My grandmother threw no children's books out ever since she had figured out that a new audience came along every few years. She read me The Bird's Christmas Carol in installments when I was around seven, I think. Later I inherited the book, which was the edition from the 1880's (old when Grandmother was young!). Yes, it is sentimental, bathetic, and Carol a little unbelievable but it's also a great Christmas story. The Ruggles's dialect is tough slogging but extremely funny once you figure out the style AND it's a good picture of poverty in the 1880's, should anyone be interested. The book is a wonderful period piece.

Not a Happy, Cheerful Christmas tale

2008-12-14
I own the 1941 edition of this book, given to me by some friends. It is charmingly illustrated - I'm not sure if that holds true for other editions.
As one might expect from books of this age, there is a heavy moral tone. It is not a cheerful book, nor would I recommend reading it at Christmas. I find it better as a take on the time period rather than an actual story.
The story concerns two families, the Birds and the Ruggles. The Birds are a well-to-do family; the Ruggles live in "the little house at the end of the back garden." They are poor.
Carol Bird is the main character in this story. She is a young child afflicted with an unnamed illness that leaves her invalid. However, she is plucky and cheerful and always thinks of doing well for others. One year, she gets it into her head to invite the Ruggles over for Christmas. It's sheer treacle afterwords - the Birds are nobless oblige, the Ruggles are pitifully grateful.
SPOILER: This is a children's book. However, before you buy it or read it to a child, you should know that Carol Bird dies in the end.
I found the interactions between the Birds and the Ruggles very interesting as a modern reader looking back to that time; there is quite a difference in class / social standing between the two families. As a story, however, it is quite cloying.

Sweet, sad, story

2008-12-07
I first read this story on Christmas day when I was ten years old and never forgotten it. It is perhaps trite in this day and age but I loved it and read it to my children and then my grandchildren. It is a story of compassion and caring.

Great Gift

2008-02-02
This was a Christmas gift and was awesome. Its perfect for kids and adults and a heartwarming gift for those of us who read it a long time ago.

Touching, humorous, sappy

2007-09-29
The story of Carol Bird's elaborate Christmas dinner for her poor neighbors' children, though frequently melodramatic, has many redeeming qualities. The opening scene where the new baby is named is quite sweet. The depiction of Carol as an angelically holy invalid gets to be a bit much after a while, but the main story wherein she invites the nine Ruggles waifs over for a holiday feast is quite nice. The chapter where the guests' mother explains to her brood how to behave in polite society is the high point of the book and laugh out loud funny, and the book is worth reading for that scene alone. The depiction of the Bird family life remains one-dimensional and sentimental, and is simultaneously heart-warming and cloying. Still, a pleasant, quick read when your in the mood for something old-fashioned that depicts a different (simpler?) era, however much the author may surround it with a golden aura.

A wonderful book

2007-08-09
This classic Christmas story by the author of REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM features a child as memorable and charitable as Dickens's Tiny Tim. Born on Christmas Day, Carol is the Bird family's special Christmas baby. As her tenth birthday approaches, declining health threatens young Carol's life. Her only wish, however, is to plan an unforgettable Christmas celebration for the poor Ruggles children next door. Few characters have embodied the spirit of Christmas more fully than Carol Bird in this bittersweet holiday classic, which generations of readers have cherished for more than a hundred years.

Great Lessons But Tough Read

2006-12-01
All the things said about this story in the other positive reviews are true. This story teaches timeless lessons. It is very touching. Its values are spot on. And it has the elements of a "classic." As a "Christmas" book it achieves the rare balance of addressing the nostalgic "spirit of Christmas" while also not forgetting the true reason for Christmas...namely Christ and His Spirit. That said, this story is near impossible for a child to read. It was difficult for this relatively literary dad to read. The reason is that there are long stretches written quoting people in a slang dialect from some time in the 19th century. This dialect is completely foreign to us today making it difficult to figure out what it is that they are supposed to be saying. Even the true "english" in the story is often structured in the manner common to 19th century writing. This also is difficult for little ones to follow. If you have older children (8+) and are up for working through some of the linguistic issues, this book has a lot to offer.

Great Christmas Gift

2004-11-09
Although Kate Douglas Wiggin's wrote this book in 1886, and it rings with the charm of that period of time, young readers will cherish its narrative for the sweet tale told. "The Bird's Christmas Carol" is a classic story sure to grab at the heart of young readers. A tale deserving of repeated reads and the perfect Christmas Gift for avid readers, young and old. Buy a copy and stash it under the Christmas tree for that special young lady on your list.
Beverly J Scott author of RIGHTEOUS REVENGE, RUTH FEVER, and JENA's CHOICE

Put this one on your Christmas reading list

2001-12-12
This is one of the books my third-grade teacher read aloud to us after recess to ease us back into our afternoon studies. It took at least a week, perhaps two for her to work her way through the story, which many of us had not heard before (unless we had an older brother or sister who had heard her read it during a previous year and came home to retell it). Some of her book choices appealed more to girls, some more to boys, but this one, I remember distinctly -- more than forty years later -- kept all of us attentive.

The story, set in the 1880's, is simple: after several sons, a family finally has a little girl, who is named Carol because she is born on Christmas morning when the sounds of the choir singing a carol came floating in the window of the house. Sadly, she has an illness (unnamed) that the she and family must accept is incurable and will be fatal. Although she has just about every toy imaginable, and the continuous attention of her parents and older brothers, she longs to do something for someone else and decides, after a bit of thinking, to throw a birthday party (i.e., Christmas party) and invite the poor Ruggles children who live in the lane.

It can not be denied that the story is dripping with Victorian sentimentality and that Carol is almost too good to be true, nor can it be denied that it is effectively told and will touch all but the hardest hearts. The image of the Ruggles children wrapped in blankets while their mother washed their clothes in anticipation of the party is but one of the vivid vignettes in this delightful book.

Along with the Nativity story and "A Christmas Carol", put this on top of the list for holiday reading. As my third-grade teacher (long-departed) proved, this is a wonderful read-aloud story.

tearjerker 2000-12-18
To the world at large, Kate Douglas Wiggin is best remembered as the author of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903). But in the Judd household, we recall her as the author of the bathetic yuletide classic The Birds' Christmas Carol.

The brief novella tells the story of Carol Bird, a sickly little rich girl born on Christmas Eve. An impossibly good and generous child, she is inevitably doomed:

"Dear heart," said Mr. Bird, pacing up and down the library floor, "it is no use to shut our eyes to it any longer; Carol will never be well again. It almost seems as if I could not bear it when I think of that loveliest child doomed to lie there day after day, and, what is still more, to suffer pain that we are helpless to keep away from her. Merry Christmas, indeed; it gets to be the saddest day in the year to me!" and poor Mr. Bird sank into a chair by the table, and buried his face in his hands, to keep his wife from seeing the tears that would come in spite of all his efforts. "But, Donald, dear," said sweet Mrs. Bird, with trembling voice, "Christmas day may not be so merry with us as it used, but it is very happy, and that is better, and very blessed, and that is better yet. I suffer chiefly for Carol's sake, but I have almost given up being sorrowful for my own. I am too happy in the child, and I see too clearly what she has done for us and for our boys."

"That's true, bless her sweet heart," said Mr. Bird; "she has been better than a daily sermon in the house ever since she was born, and especially since she was taken ill."

"Yes, Donald and Paul and Hugh were three strong, willful, boisterous boys, but you seldom see such tenderness, devotion, thought for others and self-denial in lads of their years. A quarrel or a hot word is almost unknown in this house. Why? Carol would hear it, and it would distress her, she is so full of love and goodness. The boys study with all their might and main.

Why? Partly, at least, because they like to teach Carol, and amuse her by telling her what they read. When the seamstress comes, she likes to sew in Miss Carol's room, because there she forgets her own troubles, which, Heaven knows, are sore enough! And as for me, Donald, I am a better woman every day for Carol's sake; I have to be her eyes, ears, feet, hands--her strength, her hope; and she, my own little child, is my example!"

"I was wrong, dear heart," said Mr. Bird more cheerfully; "we will try not to repine, but to rejoice instead, that we have an 'angel of the house' like Carol."

"And as for her future," Mrs. Bird went on, "I think we need not be over-anxious. I feel as if she did not belong altogether to us, and when she has done what God sent her for, He will take her back to Himself--and it may not be very long!" Here it was poor Mrs. Bird's turn to break down, and Mr. Bird's turn to comfort her.

Having reformed her family, Carol determines to help out the poor but numerous Ruggles children who live in the carriage house outside her window. To this end she plans a Christmas Party for them and sacrifices her own gifts in order to buy them presents. But after this happiest day of her life, she passes away in her sleep as the strains of a neighboring church choir waft through her window. The Ruggles children are mortified that they may have caused her death:

Sadness reigned, it is true, in the little house behind the garden; and one day poor Sarah Maud, with a courage born of despair, threw on her hood and shawl, walked straight to a certain house a mile away, dashed up the marble steps and into good Dr. Bartol's office, falling at his feet as she cried, "Oh, sir, it was me an' our childern that went to Miss Carol's last dinner party, an' if we made her worse we can't never be happy again!" Then the kind old gentleman took her rough hand in his and told her to dry her tears, for neither she nor any of her flock had hastened Carol's flight--indeed, he said that had it not been for the strong hopes and wishes that filled her tired heart, she could not have stayed long enough to keep that last merry Christmas with her dear ones.

And so the old years, fraught with memories, die, one after another, and the new years, bright with hopes, are born to take their places; but Carol lives again in every chime of Christmas bells that peal glad tidings and in every Christmas anthem sung by childish voices.

I fondly recall my Mother sobbing through this chapter as Jeff Farris, one of the neighborhood kids who basically lived at our house, asked plaintively, "Are you going to stop crying long enough to finish this? I'll never find out what happened." (NB: Here's a special visual aid--to imagine this scene in your head, simply picture a small gang of urchins in a rice paddie surrounding a woman on the verge of a breakdown )

I don't know that I'd go as far as my Mom (see her review) and say that every holiday requires a sobfest, but it doesn't hurt for those of us with health and plenty to be reminded that we are pretty lucky. And even a certified curmudgeon like me still gets his heart strings tugged by this little tearjerker.

GRADE: B+