Quentin Blake's a Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

I adore Christmas time and have always been a fan of A Christmas Carol. When I saw there was a version with Quentin Blake's illustrations in I just could not resist it as I thought it would be a lovely way to introduce this story which is full of morals to my grandchildren.

This book tells the classic story about Scrooge who is miserable and doesn't enjoy Christmas time so doesn't understand why other people do. On the night before Christmas he is taken through his life by spirits who visit him; the ghost of Christmas past, the ghost of Christmas present and the ghost of Christmas future. This is quite a scary tale with huge twists and turns during which Scrooge gets to see his life through the eyes of others and learns a lot about himself.

Quentin Blake illustrates the story well and enables the reader to be able to see the story through his eyes. This makes it a really wonderful book as Quentin Blake's illustrations are fantastic. There are gloomy pictures which have a lot of atmosphere to them as well as brighter ones which sum up the mood.

When I sat down to read this with my grandchildren they enjoyed it and liked to look at the pictures.

Having said that this is not really a young children's book as it is quite long at 140 something pages and the story is rather dark so could be frightening. It is for older children and adults. If you are a Quentin Blake fan then it is definitely for you.

I quite like being able to read the story and see the illustrations too, it does certainly add another depth to it.

In my opinion this is a fantastic book. The story is deep and tells an important moral and the pictures make it a good way to introduce a younger audience to Dickens' work. A great festive read.