Thursday, January 23, 2014

Letters from Father Christmas

Finished Letters from Father Christmas by J. R. R. Tolkien. This too was finished before Christmas proper. I'm still catching up on blogging about my books from December.

Between 1920 and 1942 Tolkien composed and illustrated letters to his children from Father Christmas. Each year there were several letters, discussing the preparations for the season, an ongoing war with the goblins, and the various scrapes that Father Christmas' assistant, Polar Bear, got himself into. Sometimes Polar Bear wrote comments in the margins of the letters, or postscripts to the children. Father Christmas' handwriting is very intricate and special, and his drawings are charmingly detailed. The children in their turn wrote back to Father Christmas and he often answered their various questions in the correspondence. What a lovely thing for a father to do for his children. This book would make a wonderful holiday gift for someone who is still a child at heart.

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