Sunday 22 December 2013

Letters from Father Christmas


Letters from Father Christmas

J.R.R. Tolkien


Recommended age: as from 3 years old




This book is the collection of the letters that Father Christmas wrote to Tolkien´s children for over twenty years. They are indeed the letters any of us would have dreamt of receiving each Christmas, with all the details of his life and adventures in the North Pole, with his friends, the Polar Bear, the Elves, Gnomes...and also his enemies the goblins.

This gem of a book not only contains the texts of the letters, but also the beautiful pictures drawn by Father Christmas himself! It is a delight to read the funny and heart warming stories and to enjoy the wonderful colours and pictures that illustrate them.

Pablo L.C.: "The letters From Father Christmas is a loving, sweet book for all the family, filled with colourful and beautiful illustrations and wonderful stories. This will help your little ones to discover the spirit of Christmas, along with a world they will adore, and that will help them to never stop believing! All courtesy of Tolkien himself. With wonderful characters which you will love straight away."






"I am more shaky than usual this year. The North Polar Bear´s fault! It was the biggest bang in the world, and the most monstruous firework there ever has been. It turned the North Pole BLACK and shook all the stars out of place, broke the moon into four - and the Man in it fell into my garden."








Jaime L.C.: "I think that this is a great book, it´s made up of stories that form a bigger story when put together. It has incredible illustrations and stylish handwriting so I think that children will like this book."



Here is another splendid drawing, this time to illustrate Polar Bear getting into an accident and making Father Christmas' job, the packing of presents, rather difficult.




Although Polar Bear is always getting into mischief, there are times when he really saves the day. He proves to be a strong and brave fighter when the goblins attack Father Christmas.




"Polar Bear was squeezing, squashing, trampling, boxing and kicking goblins skyhigh, and roaring like a zoo, and the goblins were yelling like engine whistles. He was splendid"

                           



"We are quite happy and settled again now, and feel much safer. It really will be centuries before we get another goblin-trouble. Thanks to Polar Bear and the gnomes, there can´t be very many left at all."




Daniel L.C.: "l think that these stories can be amazingly entertaining as they are creative and imaginative. You also get a bit happier every time you read them as you can easily imagine the excitement of a little child (like one of the ones in the story) receiving such beautiful letters from Santa."

I was personally impressed with Polar Bear´s very good handwriting, taking he has rather big paws...and with the language skills of Ilbereth, an Elf and personal secretary of Father Christmas, who can write several alphabets: Arctic, Latin, Greek, Russian, Runes and Elvish, (luckly he didn´t have a blog to write...I can only imagine how long it would take him to translate to all those languages, it takes us long enough with two!!)


Related Activities:

Design your own Christmas Cards! These are the ones our bloggers have made to wish you all a VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND A WONDERFUL 2014!!





Happy Christmas to all those who read!

From Daniel





















Happy Christmas and Happy New Year to our friends!

From Jaime
















Happy Christmas and keep on reading!

Best wishes Pablo











Did you know...?

It will be no news to you that Father Chrismas lives in the North Pole, but where exactly? well, the exact location is unknown but it is certain that his headquaters are somewhere in Lapland, which is the region at the north of the Scandinavian countries.

It is a wonderful land, but very cold and hush for the people to live in. The Sámi however have adapted very well. This is a Sámi boy with his raindeer, dressed with the typical clothes, aren´t they beautiful!



Their main way of living is the raindeer herds. They make very good use of them, also to make their shoes and clothing. 





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