Author: Barbara Robinson
Age: Children
Unfortunately I didn't manage to get this post up before Christmas, but hopefully you will be able to keep it in mind for next Christmas. If you never read this book when you were a kid, you've been seriously missing out. For an adult reader, it's a very quick read (an hour or less) but still funny and wise and a totally worthwhile read. When my baby is a little older, I think I will start a tradition of reading it together every Christmas.
Every year, the children in our narrator's church put on the same Christmas pageant, and every year, it is dull and unimaginative. That is, until the year that the narrator's mother is put in charge of the pageant because the regular director is in the hospital. That's the year that the Herdmans decide to be in the pageant.
The Herdmans are not regular church-goers. They are six of the worst children ever--they lie, they steal, they beat people up and set things on fire. The only reason they come to church is because someone told them there was food there. But when they hear about the pageant, they volunteer for the lead roles (and terrify all the other children so that no one else auditions).
Everyone assumes the pageant will be an utter disaster. (The Virgin Mary wears big hoop earrings and smokes cigars!) But for the Herdmans, the Christmas story is fresh and new and, indeed, miraculous. They bring to their performances a spirit of wonder that was sadly lacking from the usual pageant. Seeing the story through the Herdmans' eyes, the congregation--and the reader--will rediscover what Christmas is all about.
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