The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
The Herdmans – Ralph, Imogene, Leroy, Claude, Ollie, and Gladys – are horrible. They do awful things like lie and steal and smoke cigars. They threaten to stuff pussy willows down their enemies’ ears and set fire to Fred Shoemaker’s old toolhouse. They are the worst thing that ever happened to their school, and it’s hardly surprising when they extend their reign of terror to the church and take over the annual Christmas pageant.
The Herdmans have never heard the Christmas story before, and their interpretation of the events, which includes beating up Herod and finding some decent gifts for the Wise Men to bring, promises disaster and has the whole town up in arms. But the Herdmans are no ordinary kids, and this year’s Christmas pageant is full of surprises for everyone, especially the Herdmans themselves.
Author
Barbara Robinson
Series
The Herdmans, Book 1
Pages
90
AR Level
5.1
Book Review
I remember this book from my childhood. As a family we read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever almost every year. It still gets giggles and gasps at the terrible acts that the various Herdman children do in school and out. Our favorite is shoving a pussy willow down a person’s ear and having it sprout. We have even loosely debated whether this is possible or not.
The reason that this book is a classic for us is that the Herdmans learn something about Christmas while infiltrating the pageant. They bring an outsider’s eye to the Christmas story, which most people hear in various forms year after year. They show us that Jesus’s birth was not the perfect picture that you envision in your mind, but real people who had a baby coming in a strange town.
What We Disliked
The Herdmans do plenty of things that you don’t want your kids to emulate. It is abundantly clear in the book that all of this behavior is bad.
Audiobook
We did not listen to the audiobook.
Movie Tie-In
I remember watching the 1983 movie of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever when I was younger. It is very good and both my boys and myself enjoyed watching it on YouTube last year. It is faithful to the book – no major complaints here.
This year, 2024, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever was remade and came out in movie theaters. My middle son went to see it as a school field trip. He reported back that is was “very good”. Usually if there are big changes from the book to movie he would complain, so probably fairly close to the book. The rest of the family wants to see the movie too, so we will all watch it during the Christmas school break. Hopefully it lives up to the book.
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