A Christmas Tapestry

Locations
Call Number: Kids Book / Holidays / Christmas / Polacco, Patricia
On Shelf At: Pittsfield Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Pittsfield Storage Kids 4-week checkout	Kids Book / Holidays / Christmas / Polacco, Patricia	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown Kids Holidays 4-week checkout	Kids Book / Holidays / Christmas / Polacco, Patricia	4-week checkout	Due 05-02-2024

Youth level.
A tapestry that is being used to cover a hole in a church wall at Christmas brings together an elderly couple who were separated during World War II.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Too Evangelical for My Taste submitted by Meginator on August 27, 2022, 9:19pm The story in this book is constructed on a nice idea about history, coincidence, and (perhaps) just a bit of Christmas magic, but the execution left me a bit uneasy. Polacco’s illustration style is a bit mature for a children’s picture book, with a lot of pencil lines and uneven character design, and nothing particularly leaps off of the page apart from a few well-constructed outdoor winter scenes. The main character is whiny and generally abrasive, and his supposed moral growth is unconvincing and ultimately fairly annoying. The story itself is aggressively evangelical, and I found the main characters’ subtle lack of respect for the Jewish characters’ religion both realistic and discomfiting. I have no problem with religion in a book about Christmas (it is, after all, a Christian holiday), but I have a history with this particular brand of Christian theology and it makes me incredibly uncomfortable. Likewise, it is extremely questionable (and potentially even downright offensive) to invoke the Holocaust only to have a main character immediately thereafter invite the Jewish survivor to a Christian prayer service. More religious readers may enjoy this book, and I did appreciate the story’s Christmas miracle, but it is most definitely not for me on any level.