Updated December 2018:
This blog post originally was written in conjunction with a title from our Book a Month 2015 package. The Thirteenth Gift is no longer available in our catalog, but we think the holiday message it shares—and the acts of kindness it inspired—are worth revisiting even without the book in hand.
Original post:
As our regular readers know, each month we offer discussion questions or author interviews about Bas Bleu’s Book a Month titles, to enrich the reading experience for individuals or book clubs. But for our December 2015 Book a Month feature, we’ve opted to do something a little different, inspired by the spirit of goodwill and friendship at the heart of this month’s selection, The Thirteenth Gift: A True Story of a Christmas Miracle.
In the autumn of 1999, journalist Joanne Huist Smith’s husband, Rick, died suddenly, leaving his wife and three children grief-stricken and utterly devoid of Christmas spirit. Joanne remembers:
I absolutely understood Scrooge now. I want to go to bed tonight and wake up on December 26. No shopping. No baking. No tree with lights. I’m not in a mood to make memories. The ones I have just hurt; I can’t imagine new ones will feel any better.
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At Bas Bleu, we think books make the best gifts, be they for birthdays, graduations, Christmas, or just because. So when we first learned about Jólabókaflóð, Iceland’s annual Christmas “book flood,” we were delighted…and envious! A nationwide tradition of giving books as gifts to family and friends on December 24? After which everyone spends Christmas Eve sitting around reading? Is it too late to book our flights to Reykjavik?
