| Author: | Kate Douglas Wiggin | ISBN: | 1230001415537 |
| Publisher: | Reading Bear Publications | Publication: | November 4, 2016 |
| Imprint: | Language: | English |
| Author: | Kate Douglas Wiggin |
| ISBN: | 1230001415537 |
| Publisher: | Reading Bear Publications |
| Publication: | November 4, 2016 |
| Imprint: | |
| Language: | English |
The Birds' Christmas Carol is a novel for the whole family by Kate Douglas Wiggin written and published in 1887 and illustrated by Katharine R. Wireman. The story is about Carol Bird, a Christmas-born child, who as a young girl 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 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. The novel primarily involves Carol making plans for a Christmas celebration for the nine Ruggles children, a poor, working-class family living near the Birds. The book is a wistful, moral tale about a saintly child, but is enlivened by many humorous scenes, particularly those concerning the home life of the Ruggles family.
Kate Douglas Wiggin (September 28, 1856 – August 24, 1923) was an American educator and author of children's stories, most notably the classic children's novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. She started the first free kindergarten in San Francisco in 1878 (the Silver Street Free Kindergarten). 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.
Kate herself experienced a happy childhood, even though it was coloured by the American Civil War and her father's death. Kate and her sister Nora were still quite young when their widowed mother moved her little family from Philadelphia to Portland, Maine, then, three years later, upon her remarriage, to the little village of Hollis. There Kate matured in rural surroundings, with her sister and her new baby brother, Philip.
In 1881, Kate married (Samuel) Bradley Wiggin, a San Francisco lawyer. According to the customs of the time, she was required to resign her teaching job. Still devoted to her school, she began to raise money for it through writing, first The Story of Patsy (1883), then The Birds' Christmas Carol (1887). Both privately printed books were issued commercially by Houghton Mifflin in 1889, with enormous success.
During the spring of 1923 Kate Wiggin traveled to England as a New York delegate to the Dickens Fellowship. There she became ill and died, at age 66, of bronchial pneumonia. At her request, her ashes were brought home to Maine and scattered over the Saco River.
The Birds' Christmas Carol is a novel for the whole family by Kate Douglas Wiggin written and published in 1887 and illustrated by Katharine R. Wireman. The story is about Carol Bird, a Christmas-born child, who as a young girl 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 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. The novel primarily involves Carol making plans for a Christmas celebration for the nine Ruggles children, a poor, working-class family living near the Birds. The book is a wistful, moral tale about a saintly child, but is enlivened by many humorous scenes, particularly those concerning the home life of the Ruggles family.
Kate Douglas Wiggin (September 28, 1856 – August 24, 1923) was an American educator and author of children's stories, most notably the classic children's novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. She started the first free kindergarten in San Francisco in 1878 (the Silver Street Free Kindergarten). 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.
Kate herself experienced a happy childhood, even though it was coloured by the American Civil War and her father's death. Kate and her sister Nora were still quite young when their widowed mother moved her little family from Philadelphia to Portland, Maine, then, three years later, upon her remarriage, to the little village of Hollis. There Kate matured in rural surroundings, with her sister and her new baby brother, Philip.
In 1881, Kate married (Samuel) Bradley Wiggin, a San Francisco lawyer. According to the customs of the time, she was required to resign her teaching job. Still devoted to her school, she began to raise money for it through writing, first The Story of Patsy (1883), then The Birds' Christmas Carol (1887). Both privately printed books were issued commercially by Houghton Mifflin in 1889, with enormous success.
During the spring of 1923 Kate Wiggin traveled to England as a New York delegate to the Dickens Fellowship. There she became ill and died, at age 66, of bronchial pneumonia. At her request, her ashes were brought home to Maine and scattered over the Saco River.
