A Very Scandinavian Christmas: The Greatest Nordic Holiday Stories of All Time (A Very Christmas)

I got this book to review, but then my parents wouldn’t let me read it by myself. I’m seven, and they said some of the stories were not for children. One’s about taking a drug LSD. Another one is about an alcoholic grandma trying to make it through Christmas Eve with her family without drinking too much. One of the stories isn’t even about Christmas at all! That’s the Hans Christian Andersen story, The Brave Tin Soldier. Maybe they wanted another story that wasn’t R-rated for the book, but the soldiers were just a birthday present, and the one-legged soldier gets thrown into the fire at the end, but maybe in Denmark people always had fires burning. Andersen’s The Fir Tree and The Little Match Girl are also in the book, and they don’t have a happy ending – the tree gets thrown on fire too, like the toy soldier! But there are some happy stories like The Bird Catchers about two boys taking down their snares so birds are safe during the Christmas season. If you want a book with holiday stories for little kids, this is probably not the book for you, but if you want edgy Christmas stories for grown-ups, give it a try.