The Christmas Star: A Festive Story Collection
- Publisher : Pan Macmillan
- Publishing year : October 2015
- Binding : Paperback
- ISBN : 9781447287346
- Imprint : Pan Macmillan
- Age Group : Young Reader
- Language : English
A collection of three wonderfully festive stories from Eva Ibbotson, the bestselling author of Journey to the River Sea. ...
A collection of three wonderfully festive stories from Eva Ibbotson, the bestselling author of Journey to the River Sea. With a beautiful cover by Joe Wilson and inside illustrations, The Christmas Star is a wonderful gift to treasure at Christmas and all year round. In the first story, Vicky and the Christmas Angel, a young Viennese girl discovers, to her horror, who really brings the children's presents at Christmas. In The Christmas Star a family encounters a fortune teller at the local Christmas market who changes their lives. The Great Carp Ferdinand is a story about a hero with a difference as it follows the impact that Ferdinand – the carp intended for the Mannhaus family's Christmas dinner – has on the household in the lead-up to Christmas.
Eva Ibbotson was born in Vienna in 1925 and moved to England with her father when the Nazis came into power. Ibbotson wrote more than twenty books for children and young adults, many of which garnered nominations for major awards for children's literature in the UK, including the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize and the Whitbread Prize. Eva's critically acclaimed Journey to the River Sea won the Smarties Gold Medal in 2001. Set in the Amazon, it was written in honour of her deceased husband Alan, a former naturalist. Imaginative and humorous, Eva's books often convey her love of nature, in particular the Austrian countryside, which is evident in works such as The Star Of Kazan and A Song For Summer. Eva passed away at her home in Newcastle on October 20th 2010. Her final book, One Dog and His Boy, was published in May 2011.