Silent night book12/4/2023 ![]() ![]() Still, it was a pleasant, easy read, ideal for a busy period. I smiled a couple of times, but unlike the earlier books, I wasn't moved to any strong emotion. The writing seems stilted in places, the children’s anecdotes felt a bit predictable and since every child spoke with the same kind of voice, I rarely remembered who was whom. Having said that, I wonder if this series is getting a little tired. However it’s also enriched regularly by typical mildly amusing mistakes made by children, and a few sparks of talent that make a teacher’s work so encouraging. Jack’s life is punctuated by minor frustrations of bureaucracy, a few misunderstandings, and occasional irate parents. So, another year in Ragley passes by, set neatly in its historical context by asides mentioning - in perhaps a tad too much unnecessary detail - topical news items and pop songs of the era. I found myself a little irritated by the way that the viewpoint kept changing to a ‘fly on the wall’ style, so that we were suddenly observing situations and conversations where the author was not present, despite the main narration being from the Head’s point of view, in the first person. Still, it wasn’t necessary to know who was whom, although I found it hard, at times, to feel any kind of emotional involvement with anybody other than Jack himself. I found myself a bit bewildered at times with such a huge cast of people perhaps I would have felt more at home if I’d read all the others in the series, or at least refreshed my memory of the two I read previously. It’s not so much a novel as a series of incidents, most of them involving either children in the school or adults in the village. Beth is feeling a bit cramped in their little cottage and longs for more challenge in her career, while Jack is very contented pottering along as a village school Head.Īnd, really, that’s about it as far as the plot goes. Jack is married to Beth, a dynamic young woman who is Head of another school, and they have a toddler son. ![]() Despite the title and front cover implying a Christmas book, it's set in the entire school year starting September 1984. The village of Ragley is fictional, as are most of the characters, but the incidents and situations encountered are based on the author’s experience. They were written in a similar style to those popularised by, for instance, James Herriot or Gervase Phinn, told mostly in the first person, describing the author’s first couple of years as Headmaster at a small village primary school in Yorkshire. I read a couple of Jack Sheffield’s books about five years ago, and enjoyed them very much. Easy to read, and mildly amusing in places, but not the best in the series. ![]() (Nov.Summary: Eighth in the series about a village Head in a small Yorkshire village. ![]() In the meantime, and just in time for the holidays, we have this offering from one of our most patient chroniclers. military text mentions a primitive form of football." While succinctly conveying the mood and stakes of this unprecedented display of mutual trust during war, Weintraub's short book could help draw Malcolm Brown and Shirley Seaton's magisterial Christmas Truceīack into print. Drawing from secondary sources as well as much archival research in a variety of languages, Weintraub has compiled a brief, anecdotal account that reveals his skill as a researcher and deftness as a narrator in chapters like "An Outbreak of Peace," "Our Friends, the Enemy" and "How It Ended." There are lively anecdotes, contemporary doggerel and some extraneous asides-such as that "a Chinese fourth century B.C. Popular historian Weintraub ( MacArthur's War, etc.), emeritus professor of arts and humanities at Penn State, tackles a sober subject from WWI, when amid the millions of casualties in the obscene carnage of trench war, a mutual agreement arose for a cease-fire at Christmastime of the first year of conflict. ![]()
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