The Birds' Christmas Carol is a novel by Kate Douglas Wiggin printed privately in 1886 and published in 1888 [1] with illustrations by Katharine R. Wireman. Wiggin published the book to help fund the Silver Street Free Kindergarten in San Francisco, which she founded in 1878. [1]
The story is about Carol Bird, a Christmas-born child, a young girl who is unusually loving and generous, having a positive effect on everyone with whom she comes into contact. She is the youngest member of her family and has several devoted older brothers. At about the age of 5, Carol contracts an unspecified illness (possibly tuberculosis), and by the time she is 10, she is bedridden; physicians say that she does not have long to live. Most of the brief novel's plot involves Carol making plans for a Christmas celebration for the nine Ruggles children, a poor, working-class family living near the Birds.
Wiggin's story is primarily a moral tale about a loving and generous child. However, unlike the children often featured in similar stories of the period, Carol is refreshingly intelligent and cheerful instead of pious. The story is also enlivened by many humorous touches, particularly in the scenes of the Ruggles family's home life.
In 1917, the story was adapted as the silent movie "A Bit o' Heaven" starring Mary Louise as Carol, Donald Watson and Ella Gilbert as Mr. and Mrs. Bird and Mary Talbot as Mrs. Ruggles. [1]
Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, was an English novelist, biographer and playwright. Her parents were actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and his wife, actress Muriel Beaumont. Her grandfather was George du Maurier, a writer and cartoonist.
A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, commonly known as A Christmas Carol, is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. It recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. In the process, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.
Kate Douglas Wiggin was an American educator, author and composer. She wrote children's stories, most notably the classic children's novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and composed collections of children's songs. She started the first free kindergarten in San Francisco in 1878. With her sister during the 1880s, she also established a training school for kindergarten teachers. Kate Wiggin devoted her adult life to the welfare of children in an era when children were commonly thought of as cheap labor.
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A Bit o' Heaven is a 1917 American drama film directed by Lule Warrenton. The now-lost film was distributed by the Frieder Film Corporation in Chicago, whose California branch was headed by Warrenton. The film was based on the 1888 novel The Birds' Christmas Carol by the writer Kate Douglas Wiggin.
The Birds' Christmas Carol public domain audiobook at LibriVox
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