Because, with the exception of books narrated by “ghosts” (e.g., The Lovely Bones), if an “I” narrator is telling the story, as a reader, I know that the main character survives everything thrown at him/her. It would have been so much better if they’d started out in the “fifteen years ago” time frame, then gone up through Vanessa standing in the snow with her snowglobe and gone to a dark screen there then, they could have flashed “Fifteen Years Later” and shown her as an adult returning to town for a joyous victory after leaving us wondering if she lived or died.Īnd this is the problem I have with most books written in first-person narrative, especially those that have any measure of suspense or threat to the life of the main character. There was no reason to frame this movie with the grown-up version of this child reading the story to other children fifteen years later. But because I already knew that the little girl went on to live and grow up, it didn’t really mean as much as it could have it the child’s survival had been in question. Yes, the characters came together and pulled off an early Halloween and an early Christmas for this little girl with cancer (I assume leukemia, though it’s never specified). Which pretty much spoiled the rest of the movie for me, because it removed any jeopardy, any emotional investment I might otherwise have made in the characters/movie. She starts talking about the book to the children.Īnd I turn to my dad and say, “I guess we know the little girl with cancer survives.” She hurries over to a circle of waiting children and picks up a book-a book entitled November Christmas. People there greet her as if they know her. She drives into the town and pulls up in front of the library.

Stop reading now if you DVR’ed this last night and haven’t watched it yet.)Ī young woman drives down a snowy two-lane road. So we watched November Christmas last night. Watching the Hallmark Hall of Fame Christmas movie on CBS the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend is something of a tradition in our family-mostly because it preempts the shows we usually watch at that time and on that channel, and we’re too lazy to see if there’s anything else worth watching on (probably not).

She Walks in Beauty by Siri Mitchell