Download Treasury of Christmas Stories ePub

I purchased this from Scholastic when I was small. It has remained on my shelf and I read from it to my children now. Is it the best anthology ever conceived? No, but it is wonderful for the 8 to 10 year olds that it targets. I don't know where some other reviewers are coming from with the negative comments. It seems there was a lot of time and vitriol wasted on a book that is charming. But to each their own. I still have mine and keep it handy for the holidays.

Yes, that is what this book is- a treasure for me. So glad I was able to find it on Amazon. I read this book to my 4 th grade
classes throughout the years- but misplaced it....so glad I could find it on Amazon.

This 1960's anthology by Scholastic consists of ll short stories interspersed with poems and one non-fiction selection about international Christmas customs. The paperback format makes it portable and handy to slip into a book bag. All the stories are set in America and two are even autobiographical. My favorite is an excerpt from Little House on the Prairie, when Laura relates how the family friend, Mr. Edwards, met up with Santa in town and delivered some gifts to the Ingalls cabin for him. Best poem: The Golden Cobwebs, based on a Germanic legend. This is a short, easy read; it doesn't matter how often you are interrupted, for the yuletide season remains true and bright.

When Ann McGovern edited this TREASURY OF CHRISTMAS STORIES, she must have resented the task enormously, because the works she chose to include are some of the most poisonous pieces ever associated with the holiday. Somebody gave me this book when I was eight. Decades had passed since I last read it, so when I recently ran across it in a box of my old books, I had long forgotten why I put this one away. I was sharply reminded as I turned the pages with growing disgust.

The volume begins with a long, anemic poem about a girl who only wants a horse for Christmas, one of several insipid poems that serve as bridges between the stories. The first of these is a violent Revolutionary War tale called "A Christmas Gift for the General." Its more modern, supposedly humorous counterpoint, "Christmas Every Day," comprises a story within a story told by a father to his young daughter about a child who wishes it were Christmas every day. The father, desiring to instill a "moral" in his narrative, begins, "Once there was a little pig," referring not to an animal, but to a little girl who wishes for Christmas every day. It only gets worse from there.

After two quatrains of verse merrily titled "Ashes of the Christmas Tree" comes Hans Christian Anderson's "The Fir Tree." Anyone who labors under the misconception that Anderson was a jolly Danny Kaye-like figure who lived to delight children with his fairy tales has obviously never read "The Fir Tree." By the time I finished reading it for only the second time in 40 years, my hands were shaking. Anderson's deliberately morbid prose brought me to tears just as it had long ago, and not in a good or cathartic way.

To be fair, I steeled myself and finished the book, but none of the remaining poems or stories served to lighten my mood. The best piece of the lot--and I use the word "best" advisedly--is "Golden Cobwebs (An Old Tale Retold in Verse)." Since I like spiders, I find the concept of their decorating Christmas trees charming. However, "Golden Cobwebs" doesn't redeem any of the other works included here.

If you have ever considered purchasing this horrid little book as a gift for anyone with the idea that it is a sparkling compendium of holiday cheer, think again. Nothing could be further from the truth. These stories and verses will kill your Christmas spirit, hack it up, burn it, and deride it. Avoid this so-called TREASURY unless you hate Christmas and everything associated with it, in which case you will feel right at home.