Christmas Trolls

A Scandinavian alpine setting is perfect for this Christmas fairytale. Our valiant female protagonist teaches two troublesome trolls what the holiday is all about. Hedgehog scampers across the pages tying the tale together.

One Christmas a girl and her brother picked out a Christmas tree, and soon noticed her dog sniffing and barking at the tree as they brought it home. Each day after that the family realized some of their Christmas decorations and gifts would go missing. The day after the angel was taken from the

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tree, the girl saw the Christmas pudding being carried across the snow. After following it, she met a pair of trolls who only wanted Christmas for themselves. So she helped them decorate their house with Christmas decorations. Since the two were always fighting the girl showed them how to have fun, and before she left, she gave them her favorite toy horse. She then left for home with all of the Christmas gifts and decorations the trolls took. The next day she opened the door to find a toy horse made by the trolls.

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I would use this story for when I am teaching children how to use descriptive words in their writing when telling their own story. My students would find interest to this story because of the trolls being in the story since they are not reality type characters.

The story is sweet, with a sweet ending. The mischievous trolls learn a good lesson and the ending is redeeming. I would use this story to teach children that you can always take the opportunity to make things better if you have done wrong.

That clever little heroine Treva, who debuted in author/artist Jan Brett's Trouble with Trolls, returns in this second picture-book devoted to her adventures. Getting ready for Christmas, together with her parents and little brother Sami, she is surprised when decorations and gifts begin to go

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missing. When she spots the family's Christmas pudding being stolen by a hedgehog, she gives chase, and discovers that the erinaceous thief has been bringing the missing Christmas accoutrements to two trolls. Pitying the quarrelsome pair, who want Christmas for themselves, but don't really understand what it is, she sets out to show them...

Like its predecessor, Christmas Trolls pairs an engaging story featuring a feisty young heroine with a can-do attitude, with beautiful, detailed artwork. I loved all of the little folkloric details in the illustrations here, which are clearly Scandinavian in nature. Treva's most treasured possession is a Swedish Dalecarlian horse, for instance - a symbol of Dalarna. The folk costumes and decorations, the Christmas customs, they are all beautifully captured. As always with Brett's work, the side panels provide more of the story than is revealed in the text alone, here showing the hedgehog's activities, first in stealing and then in restoring the Christmas goodies. Recommended to anyone who enjoyed the previous story about Treva, or who is looking for Christmas stories with a Scandinavian flavor.

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