My Mother's Wish: An American Christmas Carol

Wow!!! Camery-Hoggatt is masterful 21st century storyteller who crafts animated characters and compelling narratives with an inspired pen. My Mother's Wish is a holiday tale seen from the perspective of a young girl named Ellee living in a '60s middle America landscape. Ellee's observations reveal a girl with insight and smarts but whose conclusions are still constrained by the inexperience of her limited years. It's a sweeping first-person Christmas narrative that tackles the many complexities of growing up. It's about a mother learning to accept a daughter's uniqueness and a daughter learning to see the maternal love that parenting often masks. C-H created a character that's sharp, quick-witted and independent, and crafts a tale that reminds its readers that the greatest Christmas gift of all is family. My Mother's Wish is a first-rate holiday story!

Although this is a quick read it is an excellent one. It will stay with you for a long time. I highly recommend it. :) www.abookloverforever.blogspot.com

My Mother's Wish is a neat little hardback novella set in the 1960s in the Midwest. It was fun to read and heartwarming. I loved the author's generous use of hyperbole. It would make a great stocking stuffer!

My Mother's Wish, An American Christmas Carol, by Jerry Camery-Hoggatt, is a sweet little Christmas story told with the imagery of Garrison Keillor, if Garrison Keillor had the bizarre sense of humor and imagination of Tim Burton. My Mother's Wish tells the story of Ellee, a young girl who embraces being "contrariwise" in every sense of the word. She insists on being her own person, defying the mold her strong willed, proper mother has created for her. She resists her given (read "forced upon") nae of Eleanor and the image it conjures. Ellee paints word pictures that will make the reader feel 8 years old all over again. In fact, her narrative style will remind you of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. Ellee is wise beyond her years, funny and sadly misunderstood. But in the end, she is loved and accepted for who she really is. This is a tale of reconcilliation . . . a wry, hilarious, sad little tale of eventual acceptance and forgiveness. Thankfully, Christmas morning comes just in time.

Jerry Camery-Hoggatt writes My Mother's Wish remarkably in the voice of a woman looking at her early years with uncommon insight. Little Ellee sounds much like Mark Twain, while Teen Ellee sounds a lot like someone I want to know and could have been. As a Polar Express, conducted by humor like that of Twain and Roald Dahl, this story is priceless. It should be read aloud to children and adults at Christmastime. Ellee's mother tries to tie off the loose ends of unfinished business with her own mother by naming Ellee after the older woman, "Eleanor Crumb" McKutcheon. The name Eleanor represents high tea and lace, while young Eleanor wants to be called by her real name, Ellee, which represents adventure and individualism. She wants the unconditional love and acceptance we celebrate at Christmas and does not want to wear the cloak of expectations best suited to someone else. Ellee flees one night after she listens from upstairs as her mother calls her horrid names to her father downstairs. Only Ellee's third grade teacher ever understood the need for a real name, later coming to Ellee as a gypsy in a dream. Ellee becomes that gypsy, heading out of the 1960's Midwest to Nebraska, where she seeks shelter from a storm in the Comeback Cafe close to Christmas day. The diner goes silent as an old trucker picks up a crying infant and sings ancient Christmas carols that transform the diner into Holy Ground for several minutes of magic that evaporates as he returns to his seat at the dining counter. Amid school administrators and waitresses that seem to have several arms each, Ellee finds a friend in a trucker driving a boatload of goulash to the Midwest. He's related to someone she knows and perhaps also to God himself. His truck, called the Good Ship Horvath, transports Ellee towards acceptance with a parable. If we could apply this story outside of the week between Christmas and New Year's, we could better change the world, one corner at a time. Don't mail Christmas cards this year-send this book. Armchair Interviews agrees.