Just So Stories

ISBN 10: 0099427400  ISBN 13: 9780099427407

Publisher: Random House UK, 1996

I’ve just finished my 30th year of teaching (yes, late starter) and in that very first year with a rather interesting Year 5 class in rural Qld, I read them this at the end of the year. I didn’t know the book at that stage but it was recommended for this rowdy lot by our district literary advisor (anyone else remember when we, as teachers, had that kind of support?). It was a resounding success and I have since used it many times over for classes from Year 2 to Year 6.

This copy came to me when a tiny school nearby closed down, and we got all their library stock and other resources. By that time I was in the library of that first school and as this was surplus to needs, it became part of my personal collection.

This is the 1996 UK edition, but the book was first published in 1971 as The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (which was the title I knew it as, before this copy landed in my hands), after Barbara Robinson had serialised it in McCalls magazine. It sold well over 800, 000 copies, was adapted for both stage and TV, and is now to be filmed as a feature length movie (to be released late 2024), which I find VERY exciting!

With many cover changes over the years, it has remained a firm favourite particularly as it is a quick read at only about 70ish pages.

The six Herdman children are completely wild and unruly, feared by all other kids and teachers alike. Their father abandoned them years before, their mother works as many shifts as possible (for financial reasons but also presumably as a kind of respite from her rowdy horde), they have no social conscience nor graces.

So when they turn up at Sunday School (under the mistaken idea that refreshments were offered up) and commandeer the annual Xmas pageant, the entire town fears the worst.

These kids don’t know the Christmas story at all, and their responses to it are both hilarious and revealing as they absolutely unpack the real significance of the Holy Family’s circumstances, journey and peril, bringing a completely new understanding of the import of this fundamental aspect of the Christian belief.

I last read it at my Lutheran school to Year 3s, and while some things needed clarifying (they had no idea what a ‘cigar’ is) they absolutely lapped it up and laughed uproariously at some of the predicaments.

You can still pick up 2nd-hand copies so why not try to get hold of one? (try World of Books). Always in my Top 5 Xmas books for kids from around 6/7 upwards.