A yearly read while we decorate the Christmas tree. ( )

Thomas's classic essay cum novella is rendered in larger-than-usual font with lots of white space, making it good for group readings.
The illustrations "done in ink, torn paper, and gouache" are well-suited to the text, but are not to my personal taste.

See copy-1 also.

Introduction: A Child's Christmas in Wales was originally two separate pieces. One, "Memories of Christmas,' was a BBC radio broadcast in 1945. The second, an article Thomas wrote for Picture Post in 1947, was called "Converstion about Christmas." In 1950, he edited them into one essay, which was published in Harper's Bazaar as "A child's Memories of Christmas in Wales." The version used here, and the one most widely known, was published posthumously in book form, in 1954, by New Directions, where it finally gained the title A Child's Christmas in Wales. ( )

Dylan Thomas wrote this short collection of jumbled memories in English, although he was Welsh in heritage and sensibilities. The first episode is the one most-often read at our (American) Welsh Society Christmas Tea, but all of them are humorous evocations of a now distant world that would be familiar to most children of any age that live in the snowy Anglo-American lands.

Although usually classified as an essay, I think it is a fanciful memoir more akin to fiction.

See copy-2 also. ( )

Winter 2020 (December);

Part of the round of this years's new seasonable classics. This one was alright, but I didn't find myself interested or invested deeply during any part of it sadly. ( )

Prepare yourself, and your child/children, for a journey back in time for boyhood stories spun from the pen of a Welsh poet. The poetic prose will draw word pictures your mind has forgotten how to frame.

Please note, this little book is not poetry. It is prose. The author, Dylan Thomas was a poet. Below I have shared one of his poems.

The stories begin with young boys out in the cold, snowy December afternoon on Christmas Eve and they spy some cats. So they begin to make snowballs to throw at the cats. When they hear a lady screaming "fire" and smoke is coming out of the house.

Only that is my flat, plain way of describing the beginning story. Dylan Thomas' silver pen wraps words around each other and you can see deeper into the scene, feel the cold bite of the December snow, hear the action.

What a joy to read such descriptive prose.

Then we continue on with another of the Christmas boyhood experiences. I don't know if the author told his remembrances of a single Christmas or over a span of years. But they are boyhood recollections. They are beautifully told. The boys actions speak to boys everywhere through the years. Boys in the cold snow. Boys with aunts and uncles at Christmas. Boys and their escapades.

Beautifully told, a treasure to have a recall the days when writing was replete with detailed descriptions, long and thorough sentences.

I would be remiss to not speak about the wonderful illustrations. So many, so detailed, so expressive. They truly capture the time, place, emotions, actions. I love them.

I received a complimentary copy to facilitate a review. Opinions are mine, alone and are freely given. ( )