Christmas Gift

Christmas Gift
by
R. William Bennett
children/young adult/adult fiction
This is really fine for anyone ages about 10 and up.

Bennett has written a simple, yet profound, tale of forgiveness. What if, instead of returning cruelty with cruelty someone offers forgiveness and friendship?
Sixth grader Scott is just one of bully Ben's victims. Scott is just an average kid, but he feels bad about yelling at Ben one day. Will Scott take the easy path and be like everyone else. Will he be one of the kids that makes up stories about Ben and his family? Will Scott go on to bully other kids?
This book is brief. Although it is a hardback, it is about the size of a paperback with a slim 135 pages. The lettering is fairly large and the layout is like the average Nicholas Sparks, Richard Paul Evans, Robert James Waller, or Karen Kingsbury "Red Gloves" book.
This book is coming out in time for people to read it and purchase a second copy to give as a "gentle read" Christmas gift to family and friends, but the message and most of the book don't have anything to do with the modern American commercial version of Christmas, so readers should feel free to pick up this book any month of the year.
When I lead a monthly book club each year we looked for a short inspirational book to read for our December discussion since everyone was busy that time of year. This is a good choice for a Christmas time discussion due to its brevity and universal appeal. Although it is written by a man and has two boys as main characters, the message and packaging should appeal to woman and girls as well.

This book was provided for review by the publisher.
http://www.rwilliambennett.com/

Christmas Sweater

Christmas Sweater: a Novel
by
Glenn Beck
Adult fiction novella

At 284 pages and 5.5 x 7.5 inches, this little book can be read in one day to help someone get into the spirit of Christmas. What if someone gave you a present that you really didn't like, but that was all they had? What if that person died and you never had a chance to say how sorry you were that you were ungracious and inconsiderate? We all have regrets like this. For author Glenn Beck this story is too real. It is based on an event that happened in his childhood with the death of his mother, although he changed some details.

This book joins others in the tradition of other Christmas novellas like "The Christmas Shoes" by Donna VanLiere. I would not say that it is the best of them, but deserves a place on the Christmas novella shelf.

It is not a particularly Christian book or evangelical, but about forgiveness and moving on. God (or an angel or however you interpret this) makes an appearance and the lesson is in the Judeo-Christian tradition. In the bio section I see that Beck was raised Catholic and later became Mormon, so this makes sense.

Quote:
A-tone-ment...It's a chance to fix the unfixable and to start all over again. It begins when you forgive yourself for all you've done wrong, and forgive others for all they've done to you.

The book is set at Christmas and Christmas is essential to the story, but really it is about not being mired in the past.

I have to give a big thumbs up to the jacket designer, Lisa Litwack, jacket illustrator, Robert Hunt, and whoever did the interior design and illustrations. This is a very attractive book, with small pictures of knitting needles and yarn used as paragraph dividers, pen and ink drawings, and illuminated manuscript-type letters beginning the chapters. I was slightly disappointed with the text, but the book itself is beautiful.
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I see that this is also available in a children's version - "The Christmas Sweater: A Picture Book" and for political reasons, on Amazon.com's blog someone has added tag headings of "brainwashing", and "wingnut welfare" to the entry. ??? I suspect that the Amazon people will eventually edit these tags.