The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
by Barbara Robinson
“The
Herdmans were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world.”
I don’t
remember the first time that I read this book.
It is highly likely that my mother read it to me before I would have
been able to read it to myself. We had a
cassette tape (I swear to God I am old.
In my defense the cassette and the player were both older than me) of it
in with the Christmas music that was brought out every year with the
decorations. The story describes the circumstances
through which the family of “bad” kids somehow stars in a church Christmas pageant.
This book was written in 1972 but I
think it is more realistic to see it as set it in the late 1950’s. It also in a very Midwest small town. None of the characters are physically
described at all expect for the Herdmens having “stringy hair” and “black and
blue” places.
One thing
that I found particularly interesting was that fact that the narrator has no
name. Or much of an identity at all. She
(and it is only implicitly stated that she is a girl because she gets a break
when the boys sing) calls herself a “sort of medium kid”. I wonder if this was a deliberate
choice? If it was I certainly found it
effective because it is almost a way of introducing a 3rd person
narration with a child’s perspective.
I kind of
love the Herdmans. Imogene especially. I
love how fierce and protective she gets about the baby Jesus. They
seem to be the only interesting people in a town that is probably painfully
boring. I love how bad that they are.
Well, bad to the level that little kids can understand. Reading this
again, I had so much sympathy for the teacher whose class Ollie accidentally on
purpose sets an attack cat lose in.
This book
is funny but it is the kind of funny that is almost an in joke. You have to be familiar with the kind of town
and upbringing being described or much of it will go over your head and the
book will be much less enjoyable. It reminds
me of Beverly Cleary’s Ramona Quimby books in that way. But there are also parts that are just laugh
out loud hilarious. The entirely of the
dress rehearsal in particular. Just
thinking about it is making me snicker.
There is
religion in this book. It is a church
Christmas pageant after all. But I feel as if the religion in the book is
actually pretty authentic. The narrator
has some fairly interesting revelations about the difference between what she
has always imagined as the Christmas Story and what it was actually more
probably like. She also reaffirms parts
of her faith that she has taken for granted.
I wouldn’t read this in the classroom but I would read it with children
growing up in Christian or secular households.
The religion aspect isn’t hardline or judgmental but in the books world
there are no people of other faiths.
Inclusive, this book is not.
I reread
this book every year. I enjoy the
writing, I like the sense of humor, and it gets me in the mood for Christmas
every time.
What are your favorite holiday books?
From Gooreads:
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