Mama Had to Work on Christmas
Common Sense Note
The author wrote this: "Her mother took her to dinner at a fancy hotel. Carolyn couldn't stop thinking about the children of the people who had to work on that special day." A good thing for all of us to think about.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Matt Berman
What could have been a soppy, melodramatic, didactic diatribe is instead, in Marsden's simple, matter-of-fact telling, clear, poignant, and involving. It gently opens children's eyes to the idea of class differences, demonizes no one (even the girl who offers Gloria her doll is friendly and means well), and offers no simplistic solutions.
Instead it reminds Gloria, and readers, of what she already has, but for a while was too angry to see -- the love of family. By the end of the book the contrast of the grand and gorgeous hotel, and Gloria's Christmas night in a shack with her mother and grandmother seems to favor the warmth of the shack, lit by candles, and filled with the smell of her grandmother's cooking. This age-appropriate introduction to a difficult subject still manages to be a warm holiday story.
From the Book:
The inside of the building opened up into a gigantic bubble of a room. A Christmas tree bigger than any Gloria had ever dreamed of rose toward the ceiling. It must have come straight from a forest. When she breathed in, the sharp smell went all the way through her.
Plot Summary:
Gloria's mother tends to the women's bathroom at an upscale hotel, and has to work on Christmas. Since her father is also away from home as a migrant laborer, Gloria has to go with her mother and stay in the kitchen at the hotel while her mother works.
There she is confronted for the first time with luxury, wealth, and all that her family doesn't have, revelations made worse when a well-meaning child offers Gloria her own Christmas present because her family has told her that "we should give to the have-nots."
Related Books:
Tough Times at Christmas
When Christmas Comes by Elizabeth Starr Hill
The Glass Angels by Susan Hill
Amahl and the Night Visitors by Giancarlo Menotti
The House Without a Christmas Tree by Gail Rock
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