Cold Christmas: A Ghost Story (The Dragon Books)

Nina Beachcroft is one of my favorite childhood authors, and it is so sad that her books have just vanished. This is a beautiful, beautiful book that I just read again with my daughter. It is about a young girl of ten or eleven who goes to a very cold house during Christmas by invitation from its owners. She is shy and awkward and doesn't like it one bit there, but she becomes friends with a ghost child who haunts the house. This is just the kind of story that used to be the stuff of British children's stories, dealing with ghosts and fantasy, but ultimately really with the business of being a child, growing up, relating in a difficult world. All the characters in this book are so humanly drawn and reminded me as a child, and even now, of all the difficulties of being a child. It's a great mystery, and a great fantasy, but also a beautifully written book that is just wonderful for its language. So many books nowadays for children are not written to children, but rather by buffoons to make them literate, and show no care for words or the structure of narrative. Nina Beachcroft always wrote with joy, and never talked down to her audience, and her language still haunts me and teaches me today about writing.