A Very Haunted Christmas: The Box of Delights and The Children of the Green Knowe
I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to rise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their house pleasantly.”
–Charles Dickens, preface to A Christmas Carol, December 1843
All I want for Christmas is a pleasant haunting. I read A Christmas Carol, with its glorious ghosts, every year. I watch It’s a Wonderful Life, with its angel-assisted vision of an alternate reality, every year. In 2022 I discovered two modern British classics that combine holiday with spooky: The Box of Delights and The Children of the Green Knowe.
Both of these stories are as well known to kids across the pond as Rudolph and the Grinch are to American kids. Both have TV and radio adaptations. The music from The Box of Delights, built around Carol Symphony by Victor Hely-Hutchinson, announces that winter has come, anything is possible, and children are here to save the day.
In both of these old tales the holiday itself is at stake. What more satisfying resolution to the perils of societal ills and international jewel thieves can there be than children who make everything right again? And why not children as saviors? If Santa, then why not Herne the Hunter? Why not ghost children? ‘Tis the season of suspended reality, also known as Christmas.
I’d never heard of either book until I read Katherine May’s Wintering, which mentioned both. Green Knowe was published in 1954 and Box of Delights in 1935. Both are parts of a series. Both contain bits of poetry (for poetry is a kind of spell). Both books are very, very strange. They benefit from modern adaptations, but their premises are sound: The world is dark and cold and magical. Send in the kids.
In children’s literature, snowfall is the trigger for tables to turn.”
—Wintering, “February: Snow”
John Masefield, author of The Box of Delights, served as poet laureate of England for more than 30 years. As a merchant seaman who abandoned ship, he knew a bit about adventure. The Box of Delights contains a back cover blurb from an English fellow who would later write his own children’s fantasy stories: C.S. Lewis. “It is … a unique work and will often be re-read….The beauties, all the ‘delights’ that keep on emerging from the box — are so exquisite, and quite unlike anything I have seen elsewhere,” he wrote on the cover blurb. In fact, I think this book was an inspiration for The Chronicles of Narnia. If you think The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is a curious mashup of literary figures, wait until you venture with 12-year-old Kay Harker on his absolutely bonkers adventure to save Christmas. There are wizards disguised as priests, fierce mice, an imposing woman in a sleigh, lions, and unicorns. Plus, the book taught me a new word: scrobbled. Isn’t that more fun to say than kidnapped?
Green Knowe author Lucy M. Boston didn’t publish anything until this book, when she was in her 60s. It was a finalist for the Carnegie Medal, similar to the Newbery in the US. She continued writing the series, and the fourth book, A Stranger at Green Knowe, won the Carnegie. Her home, an 11th century manor, was the inspiration for the house in the book. It is one of the oldest continuously occupied homes in England. Anything that old just has to have ghosts. This book also includes the first bad tree I’ve encountered this side of The Wizard of Oz.
Recently I read an article about why children need horror stories (at their emotional level), with reason #1: Childhood is scary.
Kids live in a world of insane giants already. Nothing is the right size. The doorknobs are too high, the chairs too big… They have little agency of their own, and are barely given the power to even choose their own clothes.”
And that’s before you scroll the scary news. Or overhear the latest angry outburst from a grownup who should know better. Children are our truth-tellers. The winter solstice and the holidays surrounding it are a safe time to remind ourselves of all that remains unsafe.
Magic happens while we sleep. When we wake, deep snow will have transformed the world. Let’s make a man from snow. Let’s sing carols into the darkness. It is late but not too late.
Photo by Joe van petten, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Megan Willome.
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A Christmas Carol, With “Extras” from Megan Willome
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- Children’s Book Club: A Very Haunted Christmas - December 9, 2022
- By Heart: ‘The night is darkening round me’ by Emily Brontë - December 2, 2022
L.L. Barkat says
We’ve been reading A Christmas Carol with you this year. (In fact, from your edition. Yay! 🙂 ) It’s funnier than I thought it would be. Scrooge himself is witty, which was unexpected.
The books above sound like something fun and surprising to put on our list for future holiday seasons. Thanks for leading us to them!
Megan Willome says
So glad you’re enjoying Uncle Scrooge! Yes, he is unexpectedly funny.
These two books are odd, yet I enjoyed both of them, for different reasons. it got me to thinking that some of the Christmas stories we enjoy here in the USA might strike people from other countries as odd. Frankly, it’s an odd time of year that calls for odd stories. You’ll have to let me know what you think of these two in future Decembers.