Long ago in London Town, at a time when the muffin man’s cries began the day, and the lamplighter ushered in the night, two young orphans lived together in the bleak, cold shelter of a public workhouse…

So begins the story of The Christmas Doll by Elvira Woodruff, where we meet the two girls who had been living at the workhouse for the past five years. Lucy had few memories of her parents, and Glory none at all.

Their days were spent at work, knitting stockings or stitching sacks. Because of the poor conditions, almost every night one or more of the girls who worked along side them were taken to the sick room, and never returned.

When Glory is sent to the sickroom, Lucy rescues her and they escape to the streets and crowded slums of London in 1840. Living among the other homeless children, Lucy tells Glory stories to keep her spirits up, just as she’d done in the workhouse. Glory’s favorite was the one about Morning Glory, the wonderful doll their mother had made for her, that was left behind when they were taken to the workhouse.

One day they find an old doll in the mud next to the Thames River. This particular doll is the turning point for the story, which is sold for a penny, later refurbished in the doll shop, and then chosen as the Christmas doll. Just as they find the doll, Lucy is given the temporary job of sewing hearts for dolls in ThimbleBee’s Doll Shop.

“Without aid of chalk or pencil, with neither patterns nor pins, she was able to fashion a heart so true to each doll that they left her hands with the glow of completion. For there is nothing so unfinished, so incomplete, as a doll without a heart.”

There she is given a bath, some lovely clothing and every evening, after closing time, Lucy has a nice meal and a warm place to sleep by the fire, which she shares with Glory and their friend Nick. Eventually Lucy’s love for the very special doll and the Christmas spirit touches the heart of the shop proprietor, who takes the little girls into her home and adopts them.

“And so it was that the flight of two orphaned sisters came to the sweetest of ends, as Miss Thimblebee opened her heart and her house to shelter the two from the harsh winter winds.

The story is told in short chapters with the author employing cliff hanging chapter endings. Reminiscent of Dickens writing, young readers who like the American Girl and Dear America series will enjoy this fast paced historical novel, and mothers or grandmothers will enjoy reading it to girls too young to read by themselves.

GENRE: Historical Fiction