The Christmas Mystery
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- 3,99 €
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- 3,99 €
Description de l’éditeur
A magical Christmas story from the bestselling author of Sophie's World
In the corner of a dusty old bookstore, a boy named Joachim discovers a magic advent calendar. When he opens the first door on 1st December, a small piece of paper falls out: on it is the beginning of a story about a little girl named Elisabet...
Little Elisabet has been missing ever since the day she ran after a lamb and found herself travelling right across Europe to Palestine, and back through 2000 years to meet the Holy Family in Bethlehem. There she met angels, shepherds and wise men who joined her on her pilgrimage.
Each of the twenty-four windows in Joachim's calendar hides another chapter in Elisabet's story, along with the key to unlock a renewed sense of awe at the true meaning of Christmas.
But who was Elisabet and where is she now? On Christmas Eve, all the pieces of the puzzle will come together...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Even grownups enjoy a bedtime story every now and then, especially one that combines, as does this one, the sophistication of a novel with the whimsy of a fairy tale. Gaarder, the Norwegian former professor of philosophy who brought us The Solitaire Mystery (1996) and the bestselling Sophie's World (1995), is up to his usual tricks here, serving up a metaphysical brainteaser that unfolds into a warm--but not preachy--meditation on God and the Christian doctrines. Set in an unnamed town in present-day Norway, it tells the story of Joachim, a young boy who finds a faded, handmade Advent calendar in a bookstore on the eve of December first, and begs his father to let him take it home. The next morning, when he opens the calendar's first door, Joachim discovers not just the expected picture but also a tightly folded piece of paper, the first installment of the fantastic tale of a little girl's journey through time and space to be present at the Nativity. Soon the girl's story is making unexpected intrusions into Joachim's own life, and he races to solve the mystery of the calendar before Christmas Eve. First published in Norway in 1992, this work is less structurally sophisticated than Gaarder's later ones, and some will be dismayed by a repeated pro-Palestine, anti-Israel theme that undercuts the novel's larger message of universal tolerance and harmony. But in the end it is Gaarder's frank, friendly voice and the adorable character he has created in the inquisitive, enthusiastic Joachim that stay in the reader's mind.
