The Christmas Doll

By: Elvira Woodruff / Narrated By: Bernadette Dunn

Length: 3 hrs and 7 mins

5-Freaking-Unabashed-Stars, soooo gonna be a Fave!!!

Here’s how it goes: I totally wait until the very day before our little audiobook club meets to listen to the group’s Pick cuz THAT way I don’t have to jot down notes. You see, I’m really somewhat (VERY!) lazy like that…

This year? Oh gosh, The Christmas Doll has Christmas in its title, IS a Christmas audiobook, so what’s not to get onboard with, like, posthaste?! I listened to it, loved it, was thinking it was most DEFinitely a Fave (Dude, it made me cry…), buuuuut: I can be dissuaded, yes I can. I’ll admit it. I’m ALSO somewhat (VERY!) lame of character like that…

Soooo, it was with heart filled with love and admiration for this little just barely 3-hour Listen, and with lame-butt character, that I joined our club to discuss this story.

-AND- ???

Oh man, nary a dry eye to be had amongst the lot (All three!) of us. This book, the story, the writing, the narration? Good cow, this sweet treasure of a story has it all. And it’s sure to join the Seasonal Rotation for years to come, till Death doth still these typing fingers. It is joining veritable classics; it is joining cock-eyed hiLARious Christmas tales. It is joining Jacob T. Marley for cripes sake!

Lucy and Glory Walcott were orphaned at an early age and have spent most of their young, oh so young, lives at the workhouse where they live in near-total darkness, shiver each night in threadbare bedbug-infested blankets, and make do with mostly-water broths for sustenance. The only thing keeping them going are the tales that Lucy spins (Which she offers as God-known FACTS) of a Life they once had with loving parents, and of a doll Glory had named Morning Glory, a doll Glory will someday have once again in the… future?

Soon, however, a fever that sweeps through the workhouse, leaving girls and even adults dead, upends their lives. Fearing to be separated and with little hope to be had, Lucy busts them out, and the two are on the run in the mean streets of ol’ London. There is icy rain, cutting wind, no money for food, and in an effort to get SOMEthing, Lucy and Glory turn to mudlarking. Well, Lucy can brave it; for Glory? Lucy will brave ANYthing.

And it’s here that Lucy stirs up from the filth and stench an old bedraggled doll that has juuuust such a beautiful face. Despite that face being covered in muck and mire, Glory—in paroxysms of delight—declares it to be her old doll, Morning Glory. And oh wouldn’t it be precious if the little waif could keep it, but alas! pragmatic Lucy knows it must be sold.

Thus do we get to the meat of the story, the bells, the whistles, the beautiful character development and the spinning of a good yarn as friendship, a bit of temporary Christmas work, and hope enters the lives of both Lucy and Glory. Stitching the hearts that make Thimblebee’s Dolls famous, Lucy works to embroider on the dolls that are selling faster ‘n roasted chestnuts this Christmas time. Lucy is given a bath and clean clothes (She embroiders in front of the store’s window so that passersby might see and be moved to purchase), she’s given food that she saves for her sister (And Nick, the street urchin with a heart o’ gold!) during the day. At night, when she’s left alone to keep the shop fires going, she secretly lets in Nick and Glory, thereby hoping to give Glory a BIT of warmth as the little girl is soooo verrrry sick. But she’s been warned specifically to NOT Let Anyone In, sooo….

And it’s beautifully narrated by veteran (And sooo NOT British!) Bernadette Dunn(e) (Dunno why there’s no “e” at the end as it’s still HER). Yup, so very recently I resoundingly trounced NOT British Aubrey Warner in A Christmas Courting, Booooo-ing the fact that she donned an accent for only the dialogue. But here? The NOT British Bernadette Dunn(e) very oh so very rarely slightly oh so slightly hits an “r” at the end of the occasional word. Other than that? I mean, Criminy! Is she half-Brit or something cuz really! she’s flawless with her accent. This makes this tale of Old-Timey London, with the smog and filth and brutal cold and heartless streets and even more heartless workhouses so heart wrenching.

Okay okay okay. Maaaaybe just a teeeeeny tiiiiiny bit of My Heart Was SOLD the minute I listened to Big Sister Lucy caring oh so well for Little Sister Glory; it sooo reminded me of my own Big Sis caring for me through our own tough times. Gosh, tears shed from the get-go!

Run, don’t walk, to give this gorgeously wrought story that hits all the right spots a chance this Christmas. You worn out and need a reminder of warmth and courage and tenderness this Holiday Season?

Hmm, looks like you need to pick up your pace there, cuz a WONderful Christmas is in sight with this!

Free listening for Audible Members.