This is a beloved story from my childhood. It gives me that warm Christmas feeling every time I read it.

A beautiful story, I so loved following every step of Ivy's journey on her way home!

Well, this was simply delightful. Also, Barbara Cooney is one of my favorites, and her illustrations add so much to the story.

Second readaloud: Because my children, especially my almost-10yo, kept begging me to read it again.

Original review:
I read this beautiful book years ago when we first got it, always intending but always failing to read it aloud to the children—simply because inevitably some plans have to be abandoned at Christmastime. This year, on the Third Day of Christmas, we made it happen! And I was right that while it's a sweet book to enjoy alone, it's absolutely magical when read aloud.

Godden is such a fine storyteller, and Cooney such a fine illustrator, that I wasn't too surprised (though I was gratified) to see how the book engrossed my 9 and 7yo sons and 6yo daughter. They sympathized with poor orphan Ivy, hated the sinister toy owl Abracadabra, and expressed awe over how well the several threads of plot interwove by the end. For my part, I love how very English the Christmas seems, as portrayed by both story and pictures.

But the best part was how engrossed my husband became in the book. He even took over reading the final pages when I had to stop, so he could find out how the story resolved. Then he went back through the book looking at the pictures he hadn't seen yet, and we admired them together.

Love Barbara Cooney’s illustrations.

This is my favorite Christmas picture book and the story is so beautiful and the pictures are perfection.

Welcome to the Christmas season. This is an old fashioned Christmas story. It is a sweet story, one that made me feel good. Holly is a Christmas doll, dressed in red and green. Ivy is an orphan girl dressed in green and red. Ivy is looking for her grandmother, maybe an imaginary one, but to Ivy very real. Holly wants find a home in the arms of a little girl. Abracadabra is the villain of the story, always discouraging Holly from getting her wish. He is an owl. Then magic comes into play. Of course, the story ends well. I did love the illustrations by Barbara Cooney. They helped to round out the story.

Such a fantastic book, a perfect melding of one of my favourite children’s book authors with one of my favourite illustrators. And come on, both girls are named after plants! Made me want a little girl to knock on my door on Christmas Eve to take care of. It’s a great Christmas book that demonstrates all those nice warm holiday feelings without getting too religious on you, which is great for my family, as we celebrate winter solstice rather than Christmas. This book is fantastic no matter what your holiday flavour preference is.

When I saw this book was illustrated by Barbara Cooney, I was very excited to read it. She was a particular favorite of mine growing up, especially because of my connection to her book Miss Rumphius. Our girls, however, gave a big groan of dismay when they saw how tightly packed the narrative is. The font is small and the story is crammed into the 32 pages of the book. I didn't really understand it - we read longer chapter books all of the time, but for some reason, they expect picture books to be short. It makes sense that many of the editions of this story list 64 pages or more. I think that it's a more palatable amount of pages for such a long tale.

Still, we loved the story and the illustrations are just as wonderful as I expected them to be. Our girls loved the bit about the grouchy owl named Abracadabra flying through the air  and landing into the dustbin and we all loved the storybook ending. Overall, it's a delightful story to read aloud, although it's significantly longer than the typical picture book. It's not the most realistic of tales, but we really enjoyed reading this book together.

Just one of the best Christmas books ever. Beautiful story, gorgeous illustrations. And though it's not presented as such, a lovely story of God's Providence.

My absolute favorite Christmas picture book. Normally I don't put picture books that I read on Goodreads, but this one is quite a bit longer than usual - it's about 32 pages, with a lot of text. I highly recommend reading it though. Beautiful story for the holiday season.

Mlle Alice, pouvez-vous nous raconter votre rencontre avec Prune et Fleur de Houx ?
"C'est une nouvelle fois en regardant les vidéos de Miranda que j'ai entendu parler de Rumer Godden pour la première fois et bien que plusieurs de ses romans m'attirent, c'est finalement ce petit conte de Noël que j'ai eu envie de lire en premier."

Dites-nous en un peu plus sur son histoire...
"Prune est une petite orpheline que personne n'a accepté de recevoir pour Noël alors, pour contrer les moqueries de ses camarades, elle s'invente une grand-mère à qui rendre visite et peut-être bien que le rêve pourrait devenir réalité en chemin..."

Mais que s'est-il exactement passé entre vous ?
"C'est vraiment mignon tout plein. C'est le genre de conte pour enfants qui nous réchauffe le coeur et que demander de plus à Noël. Je l'ai lu avec délice, et je suis sûre que je pourrais le relire chaque année avec autant de plaisir. Pour ne rien gâcher, les illustrations sont vraiment jolies et nous offre une représentation de Prune très touchante. J'ai également aimé la vieille édition que j'ai trouvé même si ce n'était pas celle que je voulais au départ (et pas celle en photo ici non plus) parce qu'elle me rappelle les livres de mon enfance. Le seul petit point négatif pour moi, c'est que l'éditeur a choisi de traduire le prénom Ivy, Lierre donc, par Prune. Je trouve ça dommage de ne pas avoir gardé l'esprit de départ et certains jeux de mots ne fonctionnent plus mais ont pourtant été retranscrits. Une petite erreur à modifier pour la prochaine réédition français qui j'espère sera un jour prévue au programme."

Et comment cela s'est-il fini ?
"Cela finit bien évidemment, sinon ce ne serait pas un conte de Noël et pour ma part, j'aimerais découvrir d'autres romans de Rumer Godden, que ce soit ceux pour les enfants ou pour les plus grands."


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