Miracle in the Wilderness: A Christmas Story of Colonial America

This is a very beautiful story, the movie version did not stay true to the book, in fact it was a disappointment after reading the book. The reader has the sense of being in the wilderness with Jasper Adams and Dorcas and understanding how difficult it was for them to make a life. When they are captured by the Algonquin Indians and walking in the snow you feel the cold and pain. When Jasper begins to tell the story of the miracle the reader listens as well and is also touched. It is a very special book.

This book is the one that the movie by the same title, starring Kris Kristofferson was made from. But they are very different. I like the movie version better, but the book was a nice story and would be a good one to read at Christmas time.

Author Paul Gallico writes his novella, "Miracle in the Wilderness: A Christmas Story of Colonial America" as if recalling a story his great-grandmother told him on a Christmas Eve night when he was a little boy. Gallico lets his great-grandmother's tale transport the reader from her cozy, Christmas tree decorated and scented parlor to a rugged, snow-covered trail in the vast mid-18th century wilderness of upstate New York.The great-grandmother's story is set on a Christmas Eve during the French and Indian War. On that day, Algonquin Indians, allied with the French, attacked the isolated frontier home of Jasper Adams. After brutally subduing Jasper and his wife, Dorcas, the Indians burn the cabin and march the Adamses and their infant son, Asher, into the surrounding wilderness as captives. Being hotly pursued by British soldiers bent on rescue or revenge, the Algonquin leader has to make a decision whether to risk the lives of his men by keeping the slow moving captives alive or kill them in order to move more swiftly through night forest. The leader is just about to announce his decision when his party come across three deer: a buck, a doe, and a fawn kneeling toward the east in the middle of moonlit glade. Jasper Adams is shocked out of his pain and despair by the sight of the deer which reminds him that on this night the infant Jesus was born. He falls to his knees in homage and is quickly joined there by his wife, who holds their infant son. The Algonquins are bewildered by the unafraid deer and also by their captives' seeming understanding of this strange sight. Their leader, a very spiritual man, demands that Jasper tell him what this all means. Jasper complies and starts to describe the first Christmas to his captors and what this night means to all people and the creatures that walk upon the earth. What follows is the true miracle in the wilderness.This is wonderfully written story of humankind's enduring faith. It's fairly short and can be read in one sitting (as I do every Christmas Eve.)This novella was also turned into a made-for-TV movie about ten years ago by TNT. However, the creators of the movie butchered this wonderful story by changing the setting from the French and Indian War to the 19th century West and then adding all sorts of unneccessary subplots.