Letters from Father Christmas, Revised Edition

Rating:
Summary: Just Imagine a REPLY to the Letter You Send Santa!!
Review: This is a really lovely little book with Professor Tolkien's characteristically magical water color and ink illustrations and his sweet-natured, witty commentaries about life at the North Pole. Meet Father Christmas on his home turf and get to know his friend Great Polar Bear. Through a series of letters that Father Christmas sent to the Tolkien children we are treated to an insider's look at all the magical preparations for Christmas as well as a glimpse of what life is like for Father Christmas during the rest of the year. This book is a fun, hands on treat for the imagination with its realistic envelopes and letters that you can actually remove and read for yourself. These enchanting letters were, of course, delivered by Elf Messenger and if you are lucky perhaps you will have a copy of this book delivered to you or someone you love.

Rating:
Summary: Anyone can enjoy this together
Review: very sweetly done, he obviously tried very hard to get into the characters he was portraying, even down to changing the handwriting. Even my grandmother really enjoyed this book, so age is not a limitation. It was the one time in a long time we've sat down and read together since I was a child.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Stories; Did Not Work in my Classroom
Review: While I completely agree with the other reviewers about the beauty and complexity and subtlety of J.R.R. Tolkien's writing in this wonderful collection of his letters and drawings to his children, I tried using this with my middle school 6th graders. They didn't "get" it. Mostly, they thought the story was boring although they found the illustrations "interesting." I ended up buying several different editions of the book, including the one with the letters in envelopes, so that my students could have several different experiences with the text. They never enjoyed it, ever. Perhaps they are at too much of an in-between age and it just wouldn't have been "cool" to like it? As a lover of literature, I was disappointed. As a teacher, I have to wonder if I did something wrong in my presentation of the piece or if another group of students would have reacted differently...