Science Fiction & Fantasy
![Matt Haig - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B001IO8C1Q.jpg)
The Girl Who Saved Christmas
Fans of A Boy Called Christmas will rejoice at this whimsical story of the first child to ever be gifted a Christmas present! A perfect read-aloud this holiday season.
Amelia Wishart was the first child ever to receive a Christmas present. It was her Christmas spirit that gave Santa the extra boost of magic he needed to make his first trip around the world. But now Amelia is in trouble.
When her mother falls ill, she is sent to the workhouse to toil under cruel Mr. Creeper. For a whole year, Amelia scrubs the floors and eats watery gruel, without a whiff of kindness to keep her going. It's not long before her hope begins to drain away.
Meanwhile, up at the North Pole, magic levels dip dangerously low as Christmas approaches, and Santa knows that something is gravely wrong. With the help of his trusty reindeer, a curious cat, and Charles Dickens, he sets out to find Amelia, the only girl who might be able to save Christmas. But first Amelia must learn to believe again. . . .
"Matt Haig has an empathy for the human condition, the light and the dark of it, and he uses the full palette to build his excellent stories." --Neil Gaiman, Newbery-winning author of The Graveyard Book
Amelia Wishart was the first child ever to receive a Christmas present. It was her Christmas spirit that gave Santa the extra boost of magic he needed to make his first trip around the world. But now Amelia is in trouble.
When her mother falls ill, she is sent to the workhouse to toil under cruel Mr. Creeper. For a whole year, Amelia scrubs the floors and eats watery gruel, without a whiff of kindness to keep her going. It's not long before her hope begins to drain away.
Meanwhile, up at the North Pole, magic levels dip dangerously low as Christmas approaches, and Santa knows that something is gravely wrong. With the help of his trusty reindeer, a curious cat, and Charles Dickens, he sets out to find Amelia, the only girl who might be able to save Christmas. But first Amelia must learn to believe again. . . .
"Matt Haig has an empathy for the human condition, the light and the dark of it, and he uses the full palette to build his excellent stories." --Neil Gaiman, Newbery-winning author of The Graveyard Book
Editorial Reviews
"If somewhere in the afterlife Roald Dahl met Charles Dickens and they cooked up a new Christmas tale, it couldn't have much on this fleet, verbally rambunctious, heart-stealing follow-up to A Boy Called Christmas." -The New York Times
"With a little bit of naughty and a lot of nice, this Christmastime yarn is a veritable sugarplum." -Kirkus Reviews
"With a little bit of naughty and a lot of nice, this Christmastime yarn is a veritable sugarplum." -Kirkus Reviews
Readers Top Reviews
BeatriceFall momErin
I loved this story- got it to read aloud to my 7 year old but I’m guessing she might have enjoyed it more if she were a little older.
STONE PHOENIX
A novel for all ages....especially those who love the fantasy of the world of Santa Claus. The illustrations are delightful and help to create a visual of the story as it unfolds. Totally delightful.⁸
Renee Troggioherongu
This was NOT the book I was expecting. I was trying to purchase “The Girl Who Saved Christmas” by William Thomas Thach. It’s a beautiful picture book with a red velvet cover that my daughter loves. It’s also available here on Amazon, but you have to scroll down below this version. I started to read this book to my 6 year old niece, but it’s really for older kids. I hope this helps others from making the same mistake I did.
CS
Slightly less than one year ago, I read Matt Haig’s “A Boy Called Christmas” and fell in love with the story he had created. This year I’d hoped to finally get a copy of his “The Girl Who Saved Christmas” to read, I’d been so enchanted by his first Christmas novel. ”Do you know how magic works? “The kind of magic that gets reindeer to fly in the sky? The kind that helps Father Christmas travel around the world in a single night? The kind that can stop time and make dreams come true? “Hope. “That’s how. “Without hope, there would be no magic. “It isn’t Father Christmas or Blitzen or any of the other reindeer that make magic happen on the night before Christmas. “It’s every child who wants and wishes for it to happen. It no one wished for magic to happen, there would be no magic. And because we know Father Christmas comes every year, we know now that magic—at least some kind of magic—is real.” But, this wasn’t always so, and there were years where no stockings were hung, before hope was in the air, or in the hearts and minds of children. Victorian England features heavily in this story, you’ll see Queen Victoria in these pages, as well as Charles Dickens, a cat named Captain Soot, and a girl named Amelia Wishart, who was the one who saved Christmas, but almost stopped believing in the dream of magic. She was the first child to believe, to hope for that magic of that first Christmas, and it was her hope that made that first Christmas possible. Sadly, she’s fallen on hard times – the kind of hard times that only could happen in earlier times, a time like the Victorian era, the era that Dickens wrote about in her favourite book of his, Oliver Twist. I loved this, from the flying pixies, the truth fairy, elves and the trolls, to the occasional nod to Dickens, the occasional use of Victorian era words rarely used, such as ‘skilamalink.’ I even loved the font that was used for this, and – of course – the marvelous illustrations, courtesy of Chris Mould, which are delightful. I loved that this book is truly meant to be read to children, but has enough charm for adults reading this to remember the wonder of the holiday season as though they are seeing it once again through their own eyes as a child. Hope is such an important thing to have, especially for children, to hold onto. I loved this message most of all, for without hope, there is no faith in anything – religious or otherwise – it is the belief in what could be. It is necessary in order to achieve anything, and everything, in life.
Tirsea
My granddaughter (8 yrs) loved this book! As soon as she received it, she sent me a picture and a thank you!
Short Excerpt Teaser
Do you know how magic works?
The kind of magic that gets reindeer to fly in the sky? The kind that helps Father Christmas travel around the world in a single night? The kind that can stop time and make dreams come true?
Hope.
That's how.
Without hope, there would be no magic.
It isn't Father Christmas or Blitzen or any of the other reindeer that make magic happen on the night before Christmas.
It's every child who wants and wishes for it to happen. If no one wished for magic to happen, there would be no magic. And because we know Father Christmas comes every year, we know now that magic--at least some kind of magic--is real.
But this wasn't always the case. There was once a time before stockings and Christmas mornings spent excitedly ripping off wrapping paper. It was quite a miserable time, when very few human children had any reason to believe in magic at all.
And so, the very first night that Father Christmas ever decided to give human children a reason to be happy and to believe in magic, he had a lot of work to do.
The toys were in his sack, the sleigh and reindeer were ready, but as he flew out of Elfhelm, he knew there wasn't enough magic in the air. He traveled through the northern lights, but they were hardly glowing at all. And the reason for the low magic levels was that there wasn't much hoping going on. After all, how does a child hope for magic to happen if they've never seen it?
So that very first visit from Father Christmas nearly didn't come. And that it did happen is thanks to one thing. A single human child. A girl, in London, who believed in magic totally. Who hoped and hoped for a miracle every single day. She was the child who believed in Father Christmas before anyone else. And she was the one who helped Father Christmas, just as his reindeer were starting to struggle, because the amount she hoped, while she was lying in bed that Christmas Eve, added light to the sky. It gave Father Christmas a purpose. A direction. And he followed a thin trace of light all the way to her home, at 99 Haberdashery Road, in London.
And once that was done, once he had placed a full stocking of toys at the foot of her bug-ridden bed, the hope grew. Magic was there, in the world, and it spread among the dreams of all children. But Father Christmas couldn't fool himself. Without that one child, that eight-year-old girl called Amelia Wishart, hoping so hard for magic to be real, Christmas would never have happened. Yes, it took elves and reindeer and the workshop and all of that, but she was the one who saved it. The dream of magic.
She was the first child.
The girl who saved Christmas.
And Father Christmas would never forget it. . . .
The kind of magic that gets reindeer to fly in the sky? The kind that helps Father Christmas travel around the world in a single night? The kind that can stop time and make dreams come true?
Hope.
That's how.
Without hope, there would be no magic.
It isn't Father Christmas or Blitzen or any of the other reindeer that make magic happen on the night before Christmas.
It's every child who wants and wishes for it to happen. If no one wished for magic to happen, there would be no magic. And because we know Father Christmas comes every year, we know now that magic--at least some kind of magic--is real.
But this wasn't always the case. There was once a time before stockings and Christmas mornings spent excitedly ripping off wrapping paper. It was quite a miserable time, when very few human children had any reason to believe in magic at all.
And so, the very first night that Father Christmas ever decided to give human children a reason to be happy and to believe in magic, he had a lot of work to do.
The toys were in his sack, the sleigh and reindeer were ready, but as he flew out of Elfhelm, he knew there wasn't enough magic in the air. He traveled through the northern lights, but they were hardly glowing at all. And the reason for the low magic levels was that there wasn't much hoping going on. After all, how does a child hope for magic to happen if they've never seen it?
So that very first visit from Father Christmas nearly didn't come. And that it did happen is thanks to one thing. A single human child. A girl, in London, who believed in magic totally. Who hoped and hoped for a miracle every single day. She was the child who believed in Father Christmas before anyone else. And she was the one who helped Father Christmas, just as his reindeer were starting to struggle, because the amount she hoped, while she was lying in bed that Christmas Eve, added light to the sky. It gave Father Christmas a purpose. A direction. And he followed a thin trace of light all the way to her home, at 99 Haberdashery Road, in London.
And once that was done, once he had placed a full stocking of toys at the foot of her bug-ridden bed, the hope grew. Magic was there, in the world, and it spread among the dreams of all children. But Father Christmas couldn't fool himself. Without that one child, that eight-year-old girl called Amelia Wishart, hoping so hard for magic to be real, Christmas would never have happened. Yes, it took elves and reindeer and the workshop and all of that, but she was the one who saved it. The dream of magic.
She was the first child.
The girl who saved Christmas.
And Father Christmas would never forget it. . . .
