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Emily Brown and Father Christmas

12 Reviews

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Emily Brown and her side-kick rabbit, Stanley, are back! And who's that outside the window ... it's Father Christmas! With an important message about cherishing traditions that children will understand, this is storytelling at its best, from an exciting creative team in children's books. 'Will both delight fans, and give them something to reflect on. Layton's illustrations are a joy, matching the text perfectly.' - Bookseller Written by Cressida Cowell, the bestselling author of the How to Train Your Dragon series. http://www.cressidacowell.co.uk/ Illustrated by award winning Neal Layton, creator of Stanley's Stick and illustrator of Danny McGee Drinks The Sea, shortlisted for the 2017 Laugh Out Loud Picture Book Award.
http://www.neallayton.co.uk/

ISBN: 9781444941999
Pub Date: 4th October 2018
Publisher: Hachette Children's Group
Imprint: Hodder Children's Books
Format: Hardback
Number of Pages: 32

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Series

This is Book 12 in the Emily Brown Series. See all Emily Brown books here.

Media & Blog Reviews

'Will both delight fans, and give them something to reflect on. Layton's illustrations are a joy, matching the text perfectly.' (Bookseller)

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Laura2788 Adult 23 book reviews

21st November '18

I read it to Jack2788 aged 3 aged 3 & to George2788 aged 7 months aged 0

A lovely Christmassy story. Father Christmas is a little bogged down with technology and is finding it hard to deliver the presents so Emily Brown steps in. This book had my son laughing out loud, the story is engaging and the illustrations bright and compliment the story well. We thoroughly enjoyed this book.

BookClub Years 3&4 Group aged 7 to 9 2 books

21st November '18

BookClub Years 3&4 read it themselves aged 7 to 9

I love Emily Brown books, so had to read it straight away! Another fantastic Emily Brown story - in this one Emily Brown and Stanley need to help Santa who has attempted to become more modern and it has a lovely message to remind children what Christmas is all about. I shared this story with book club and this is what they thought of it: ‘I really enjoyed this book as it’s funny and I love the illustrations’, ‘I liked it when Father Christmas was hanging outside the window - it was so funny’, ‘It was amazing because it’s about Father Christmas and it was really funny’, ‘I liked the fact that Father Christmas would shout Ho-ho help’, ‘I liked that it was humorous in the way Santa wants to be more modern and it proves technology isn’t everything’, ‘It made me happy how helpful and kind Emily and Stanley were’.

Nicki.Hogan Adult 313 book reviews

3rd December '18

I read it to RCHogan aged 4 aged 4

We were sent this from Toppsta as part of the Christmas book advent calendar and I’m so glad we were! We all absolutely adore it.
Father Christmas attempts to modernise Christmas and replace magic with technology keeps coming a cropper. Luckily he’s outside Emily Brown’s house and is rescued each time by the girl herself and her side-kick rabbit, Stanley. The children find the situations he gets himself into hilarious.
Emily Brown is a marvellous character who’s no-nonsense approach to Father Christmas’ mishaps makes them all the funnier. She sends the message repeatedly that kindness and helping others is what Christmas is about and models this notion throughout.
I love the message running throughout that the magic of Christmas is being ruined by “modernisation” and the latest-must-haves (including technology) and gently suggests the traditional “old ways” are perhaps the best way to go during the festive season. It sparked a lot of talk with my children about this and traditional Christmases.
The illustrations are great; they’re bright and fun; they suit the story perfectly. They’re packed with details and really capture the characters and their feelings very well.
This book has been our introduction to Emily Brown and Stanley and on the back off this we will definitely be hunting down the rest of the series!

HParry Adult 19 book reviews

22nd November '18

I read it to AParry aged 2 aged 2

Me and my almost 3 year old daughter both love this book and she has now started asking for "the Christmas book" every night. Following many attempts to use the latest technology to deliver the presents, Father Christmas needs Emily Brown's help to save Christmas. The moral of the story is a good one and gives an opportunity to talk about things that are important at Christmas other than presents, particularly in non-religious households. The illustrations also give us a lot to talk about and help my daughter understand the story. A very good read. We'll certainly be getting some more Emily Brown books for after Christmas.

Lilyfae Adult 43 book reviews

23rd November '18

I read it to PixieRabbit aged 5 aged 5 & to Picklefae aged 2 aged 2

This book is absolutely delightful and very much needed to bring Christmas back to a family and kindness focus than on commercialism and the latest must haves.
Pixie Rabbit adored this book especially how Emily Brown takes charge, the female protagonist is not a meek and mild girl, she is kind but doesn't tolerate the silliness of Father Christmas' attempts to modernise his methods and ditching magic.
The message is clear that focusing on the newest electronics, the latest gadgets and stuff and what you can get from the new catalogues diminishes the magic of Christmas. Since this has arrived, I have to say Pixie Rabbit as not spent so much time with the toy shop catalogue as before so maybe something's rubbing off!
Picklefae thinks this is fun because it has Father Christmas in it which is a new obsession for her.
The illustrations make this a special book as we can see Father Christmas frustration and confuzzlement with what he perceives are the requisites of the modern Christmas. It's a lovely message to reclaim the magic. Highly recommended.

DeePea Adult 2 book reviews

24th November '18

I read it myself (an adult) , to ElizaMay aged 6 aged 6 & to BBOY aged 10 aged 10

Emily Brown and her charming rabbit have a surprising Christmas Eve. Charming story reminding us all what Christmas is really about. Beautiful illustrations, the children loved it.

Jrh Adult 167 book reviews

23rd February '19

I read it to Pre-schoolA aged 2 to 4

The children love Emily Brown and Father Christmas so much that they asked for it again as soon as we finished reading the book! The story follows Emily Brown and Stanley (the rabbit's) adventures on Christmas Eve to help Santa after he's changed himself to technology to keep up with the times but Emily recognises that it's not working for him and he should probably stick with the old and better way. This was great to show the children that sometimes new isn't better and that you shouldn't feel like you have to change for other people, they did really enjoy seeing Santa struggle though and found it funny seeing him get into all kinds of silly situations! The characters of the book are brilliant, Santa is always a great character according to the children and so they all said he was their favourite but a lot of them also liked seeing Stanley as it looked a lot like their toy rabbits and the adventures they go on. It was nice to see Emily Brown as such a kind and helpful character and to see the child get to share the important information about how old can be better as that's something that usually comes from an adult and so it made the children think about what they think Father Christmas should do. The illustrations are fantastic throughout the book with great pictures of the adventures they got up to but that weren't too busy so the children could really focus on what was going on and listening to the story. The children loved this book, such a brilliantly funny story with a great message throughout!

elilpirana Adult 211 book reviews

24th November '18

I read it myself (an adult) , to Aby aged 8 aged 8 & to Laya aged 3 aged 3

Absolutely delightful picture book . Emily Brown and her rabbit, Stanley are on a mission again. Helping Santa and delivering Christmas presents. My daughters said they love Emily Brown and her imaginations. A magical story with fabulous illustrations.

MrsHiggins Adult 1 book review

25th November '18

I read it to PoppyHiggi aged 4 aged 4

This is a beautifully written and illustrated book. I shared it with my 4-year-old granddaughter.
It tells a touching story about how Emily helps Father Christmas and how Christmas is about being helpful and kind. It is humorous too, due to poor Father Christmas's evening not going as planned!
As well as the story there is lots to discuss in the illustrations- we enjoyed guessing what was in the wrapped presents. My granddaughter's favourite part involved the reindeers.

Rachel C Adult 43 book reviews

19th December '18

I read it to Joel C aged 1 aged 1

A nice Christmas story about Father Christmas's misadventures and how Emily Brown rescues him. This was a good story, with a lovely repeating phrase from Father Christmas of "ho ho help". The illustrations are good. On some pages the text isn't very clear as there isn't enough contrast between the background and the text colour. I was disappointed that it says that being kind to one another is the true meaning of Christmas. Nevertheless a nice story that I'm sure well return to for a number of years.

craftyactivist Adult 231 book reviews

22nd November '18

I read it to myka aged 1 aged 1

This is a wonderfully illustrated book, with short sentences that work well for my young daughter. It is quite comic, and you can get giggles out of children with the 'Ho Ho Help'! There is also a non commercial moral to the story, of not seeing Christmas as just about presents. However, as a Christian I was disappointed that the book focused on the 'true' meaning of Christmas being about being kind. I appreciate the book was not a religious one, and wasn't trying to tell the story of the Nativity, but to completely write out any thought at all as to why we celebrate Christmas and it's original meaning jarred with me. Even though it is well illustrated and written, I can therefore only give it 3 stars

Tuuli Adult 21 book reviews

9th December '18

I read it to Robinpoppy aged 3 aged 3

I'm writing this from the perspective of somone who's never read any of the other Emily brown stories. Perhaps if I had I would have enjoyed this book a bit more. It wasn't a bad story, my daughter enjoyed it but I felt it lacked originality and unfortunately wasn't the warm cosy Christmas story I was hoping it was going to be. That said it was still an enjoyable read around the Christmas season.

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About Cressida Cowell

Cressida Cowell Biography
Cressida Cowell is a British author, best known for her How To Train Your Dragon book series which was also made into animated film by DreamWorks in 2010. The books have been published in over 30 languages and are a huge hit with young readers worldw...

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About Neal Layton

Jonathan Meres is the author of the best-selling WORLD OF NORM series, the first of which was nominated for The Scottish Children's Book Awards in 2012.

Born in Nottingham, he left school at 16 to join the merchant navy. Ever in search of adventure, he t...

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