C and I snuggled up earlier to read Father Christmas by Raymond Briggs, which I plucked from our amply-stacked Random Christmas Books I Don't Remember Buying But Clearly Did shelf. He was in a bit of a grump with the red-suited bearded one, as we'd been to a National Trust property to meet him, and FC had had the audacity to give C a present which we already have. Disaster!
However this meant that C's grumpiness was matched in a very fitting way with FC's grumpiness. He loved the dream sequence where FC tries to dream his holiday dream again but it is broken and ruined. He enjoyed the fact that there were very few words, and that he could read the story through the pictures.
A joined us half-way through, so we went through it again, and C was able to recall all of the story without looking through the pictures again. Briggs always produces such clear visual images. I particularly love the 1930s semis, and the way the fronts of all the houses are cut-away, doll's house style.
The Amazon reviews contain a lot of indignation about how grumpy FC is. A and C found this hilarious! C said that you can tell he's a nice man, because he's nice to his animals. Neither of them commented that FC had no human contact, and eats his Christmas dinner alone, which always strikes me as a little bit sad.
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