Book Review: The Christmas Village by Melissa Ann Goodwin

A couple of months ago I was asked to participate in a blog tour for Melissa Ann Goodwin's lovely children's book The Christmas Village. As part of the tour to help promote the book Melissa will be writing a guest post on my blog which I will publish tonight (hopefully the timing works out, the difference between Australia and America still confuses me a little!). But before I publish her guest post, I want to write a review of the book itself. I'm so glad I was asked to be a part of this tour because otherwise I may never have discovered this beautiful little book!

It tells the story of a young boy called Jamie who is visiting his grandparents in Vermont for Christmas. His father recently left his mother and the whole town in which he lives is involved in gossip and speculation about what took place. Jamie is angry at his dad and takes out his anger on his mum, who is also suffering in her own silent way.

While at his grandparents house, Jamie is drawn to a miniature christmas village which his grandma sets out in the living room for decoration. In his depression, he starts to wish he lived in the fictional christmas village where he imagines life would be so much easier. The old saying, be careful what you wish for couldn't be more true in this case as suddenly Jamie finds himself transported back to the year 1932 into a town called Canterbury.

This is how I imagined Canterbury to look like...

Once there he finds himself in the midst of danger, where he confronts the antagonist of the story, a man called Jim and races against the clock to try to get back home by midnight of Christmas Eve. In the process of solving mysteries and trying to figure out how to get back to his mum, Jamie makes friends with two very special people, a brother and sister who are the children of the town's banker Mr Pennysworth. With this friendship comes great understanding of a few things in Jamie's life. He starts to evaluate his behaviour toward his mum and also starts to realise the importance of home and family.

I absolutely loved this book! It captured the Christmas spirit beautifully and had a good message behind the story. With a few twists and turns thrown in, and a bit of riveting mystery it really was a great read. But it was the setting and characters that I loved the most. The friendship between Jamie, Chris and Kelly was very touching and of course Ida, the lady who ran the old boarding house and who took Jamie in was delightful. The town of Canterbury itself was described in great detail and made me wish I could time-travel there myself! Snow, chimneys, christmas carols, cinnamon cookies, mittens and scarves and ice skating and cider... this book has it all! It's the kind of Christmas I've always wanted to experience and it's almost like Melissa had wrapped up all my imaginings and dreams and turned them into this wonderful story. It brings to life what Christmas is all about, and definitely got me in the festive mood.

If only Australia could experience a snow-filled Christmas like this one in Vermont, I would be sooo happy! But I guess that's the beauty of books, and especially this one, they take you away into beautiful places and let you experience and enjoy these illusory worlds. Thanks Melissa for writing about the Christmas I've always wanted! This book is a treasure.

Publisher: CreateSpace October, 2011
Source: Received for review by author
Rating: 5/5 stars