Book Review: Cole Family Christmas

Yes, it’s true – Christmas is a mere 66 shopping days away.  And for many of those days, the stores will be bustling as people hurry and scramble to find the ‘perfect’ gift for their family, friends and loved ones. I know that every year it seems like the Christmas season starts earlier and gets crazier – to the point where I’m sometimes exhausted just thinking about everything that needs to get done.

It would be nice, wouldn’t it, for things to go back to a much simpler time – when Christmas presents were a special surprise (not expected and hardly appreciated) and when the focus was on spending time with family and being together…

That’s why stories like the one told in Cole Family Christmas are so important to read and remember. I received a copy of this book to read and review, courtesy of the Family Review Network.

What it is:

Cole Family Christmas was written by Jennifer Liu Bryan and Hazel Cole Kendle, a grandmother/granddaughter team who documented a true family story passed down for generations about Hazel’s coal mining family and an unforgettable Christmas experience in the 1920s. The book is made up of 9 short chapters to help encourage family-time by reading aloud to one another.

"It was my sister Ruble, our family’s storyteller, who passed down to me the story of a magical Christmas when things didn’t go quite as planned… yet that Christmas became one of my family’s most beloved and memorable holidays," Hazel says. "I, in turn, told this story to my children, who then told it to their own children. I think this tale has been meaningful to each new generation."

Jennifer hopes that Cole Family Christmas inspires other families to recognize and preserve their histories as well. "Having the opportunity to spend time listening to Hazel’s stories has been such a rewarding experience," she says. "I hope other families can share their cherished tales in this way, too."  Indeed, the book has been a family affair from start to finish.  More than 20 Cole family members assisted on everything from background research to promotional design.  

Hazel was one of nine Cole children raised in the small mining community of Benham, Kentucky, in the Appalachian Mountains. The tale, based on a true story, follows a special Christmas when the Cole children are allowed to ask Santa for gifts from the Sears catalogue wish book. An unlikely snowstorm, however, sets the stage for a holiday in which gifts are given and received that no one could have predicted. The joyful and unexpected Christmas morning that results has lived on as family lore, and is preserved in Cole Family Christmas.

Here’s my take on it:

I sat down and read through the book in one sitting by myself, intending to then give it to my girls after that – both to read to them and have them read on their own. But as I read through the amazing story chronicled in this book, I changed my mind and decided that what I’m going to do instead is read the nine chapter of the book to my girls on the nine nights leading up to Christmas Eve this year. Not only will that give us precious family time together, but I think that the underlying lessons in the book are wonderful ones for kids to hear and understand right before Christmas morning.

The book is told from middle Cole sister Ruble’s point of view – the older sister of co-author Hazel, who appears in the story only as the baby of the family, which she was back in 1920 when the actual events chronicled in the book occurred. In just nine chapters, you really feel like you get to know the nine Cole children and their parents – and are drawn into their lives. I was so glad to see updates at the end of the book, along with a family photo taken in 1919 – to know ‘what happened next’.

The story is a simple one, but is told in a way that’s very relatable, from young Ruble’s point of view. You feel with her as a precious family treasure is broken at the beginning of the book and rejoice with her at the events that occur at the end of the book. The book is fully illustrated – Jenniffer Julich’s drawings do help bring the story to life. The pictures are wonderfully drawn and colored – although I do wish that they were slightly less ‘cartoonish’. Somehow that just takes away from the feeling of the story to me.

The bottom line:

Cole Family Christmas is an amazing story of one family’s special Christmas and how they made the most out of what they had at the time. The story is a precious family tale and I can see why it’s been passed down from one generation to another for so long. I am looking forward to sharing the book, and the story, with my girls this Christmas and for many more to come.

Where can you find it?:

Cole Family Christmas is available at Barnes & Noble, at Amazon and other retail locations where books are sold. You can also purchase it through the book’s website, at http://www.colefamily-christmas.com.  The list price of the book is $17.95.

This post courtesy of: