Hoglets’ Christmas Magic

HOGLETS’ CHRISTMAS MAGIC by Lynette Creswell – out August 2021

Hoglets’ Christmas Magic by Lynette Creswell is a beautiful book in every way. It tells the story of Mr and Mrs Hedgehog, their son Prickles and their daughter Primrose. It’s Christmas Eve, they are decorating the tree when they discover the star has been broken, so they have nothing to put on the top. But what can they find to replace it, when they only have the woods to look in?

Every page of this book made me smile. The characters come to life through the lovely words, and the illustrations by Doriano Strologo are superb – realistic but brightly coloured and beautifully detailed. Children will love looking at them and seeing what they can spot in the pictures. The pages without illustrations on are nicely coloured too, with little hedgehog symbols in the background of many of them.

As well as the hedgehog family, we meet a few more characters during the story – again beautifully described by the words and illustrated by the drawings. There are a couple of other woodland creatures included and, being a Christmas book, a special guest star makes an appearance too.

The story is a really heart-warming one, suitable to be read to babies and younger children, then for school-aged child to read themselves or with help from their adults. I think this is suitable for birth to around ten-year-olds, but it’s such a gorgeous story, that it’s a book adults will enjoy reading, as much as the children will enjoy hearing it.

Highly recommended! 5 stars.