The White Ravens Database

Presented by   Internationale Jugendbibliothek / International Youth Library

Spanish / Mexico

Canción sobre un niño perdido en la nieve

(A carol about a child lost in the snow)

Malpica, Toño (text)
Quijano, Sara (illus.)
México: Ed. El Naranjo, 2020. – 221 p.
(Series: Ecos de tinta)
ISBN 978-607-8442-95-9

Dickens, Charles / A Christmas Carol  | Christmas  | Social disparity  | Bitterness  | Reconciliation  | Humanity

Reading age: 12+

White Ravens issue: 2021

OPAC

Toño (Antonio) Malpica makes one of the nameless children of the Cratchit family in Charles Dickens’s “Christmas Carol” into the protagonist for his novel, which plays out fifteen years after Dickens’s story. William (Billie) Cratchit has broken off contact with his family. A bookkeeper who doesn’t earn enough to marry the love of his life, he seeks embittered revenge on his boss on Christmas Eve. A cleverly constructed story unfolds from that premise, offering up a scintillating mix of Gothic novel, fantasy, mystery, and moral lesson with reader misdirection and surprising twists and turns. Is Ebenezer Scrooge of the “Christmas Carol” still alive or is he dead? Is he a ghost or a hallucination in Billie Cratchit’s head? Is Billie really going to go through with his plan? Or is he only dreaming and in reality a respected, well-off lawyer and family man? Only at the end do the threads come untangled in this masterfully told story about destiny, personal responsibility, and forgiveness. [JW]