 | ON: Content is age-appropriate for kids this age. |
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 | OFF: Not age-appropriate for kids this age. |
 | NOT FOR KIDS: Not appropriate for kids any age. |
A Christmas Sonata
- By Gary Paulsen
- Genre: Holiday
Common Sense Media says
A dying boy wants to believe in Santa.
Parents say
Kids say
QUALITY
What parents need to know
Parents need to know that a major child character is very sick and eventually dies. Also the existence of Santa is doubted, though reaffirmed at the end.
What's the story?
The author relates a memory of when, at the age of 6, he travels with his mother during WWII to spend Christmas with his aunt, uncle, and dying cousin Matthew. Just before he leaves his faith in Santa Claus is shattered when he sees the mean old man down the hall dressed as Santa and drinking wine.
Almost the first half of the book is taken up with details of their journey by train. When they do arrive, he finds that his bedridden cousin also doesn't believe in Santa. But each of them secretly yearns to believe again, and together they search for a way they can trust that will take them back to belief.
Is it any good?
Though what little action there is comes slowly, many children will be fascinated by the period details. The daylong train trip and the uncle's country store, both lovingly described, are relics of an earlier time, though the rest of the story is timeless. The loss and recovery of faith, though only in Santa Claus, is universal.
As always, Gary Paulsen tells his story in clear, unadorned prose, stripped to the bones of memory and feeling. For once he has an illustrator who matches his style with simple, lucid pencil drawings. But unlike most of Paulsen's work, this is a gentle story, without action or great drama, the kind your grandfather might tell you before you drop off to sleep.
What families can talk about
Families can talk about why proof of Santa is so important to the dying boy, and how a glimpse of a mean old man in a Santa suit could destroy that faith. Also, how is the world of memory here different from the modern world?
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AGE
Sucked!
This was the worst book i have ever read and it makes me amd that some one would something like this!
Thank you for making this an unsafe world ofr all our kids!
Gary Paulsen (The Writer)
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AGE
Please Listen!!!!
When you choose a book you should read first about what it is about, See if u have read any books from the author.
thanks!
here are books i reccomend
Because of Winn-dixie, The tiger rising, Hatchet, The christas Sonota,
Tears of a tiger, Bunicula, bunicula srikes again..., I amber brown, Cam Jansen GOOD LUCK FINDING A BOOK!!
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Kid, 11 years old
December 16, 2009
AGE
it's perfect
when i was in third grade my teacher read it to my reading group.i thought it was wonderful when we were done reading it.i thought it was about a young boy who doesn't know what death is.also that just because he saw an old man dressed in a santa clause suit,he thought there was no santa.
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| Author: | Gary Paulsen |
| Illustrator: | Leslie Bowman |
| Book type: | Fiction |
| Genre: | Holiday |
| Publisher: | Yearling Books |
| Publication date: | December 19, 2005 |
| Number of pages: | 76 |
| Paperback price: | $5.50 |
| Publisher's recommended age(s): | 7 - 11 |
| Read aloud: | 7 |
| Read alone: | 8 |
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