Colorful descriptions add to this sweet story of a little girl and doll both hoping for a home on Christmas and the wife of a policeman who wants something more for her holiday this year. ( )

Charming classic told from the perspective of a determined orphan and a similarly determined doll, each eager to find a home on Christmas. ( )

A bit long for a read aloud so the child has to be a bit older to stay engaged. ( )

Orphaned Ivy and a doll named Holly find their Christmas wishes fulfilled with the help of a lonely couple.

This edition, illustrated by Barbara Cooney, is the one I'd buy for my children. It's clearly an old-fashioned fantasy, with a doll that needs a child, and an orphan child that needs a home, and Christmas, and a policeman, and a shop-keeper, and a happy ending. But it's one of the loveliest of the genre I've read, and, in bits, one of the more clever. The mean stuffed owl, Abracadabra, is one of the elements that spices it up. ( )