“If you don’t let me be Mary, I’ll put a bunch of worms in your coat pockets and draw all over your homework. And next spring, when the pussy willows bloom, I’ll stick a pussy willow seed so far down your ear that nobody will be able to reach it- and it will sprout down there and it’ll grow and grow, and you’ll spend the rest of your life with a pussy-willow bush growing out of your ear!”
Turns out The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is not available on DVD. Bummer! I had already decided on that as a Christmas present for my friend’s kids. Maybe I’ll order the VHS- I didn’t find it on the shelves in any of the stores I’ve been to.
But . . . who here has read the book? I’ve never read it, I only know the movie. They’re a family that loves books. The gift idea came from my memory of loving the movie as a kid, but since it’s not available on DVD I should probably just buy them the book.
Also, does anybody understand the credits on the IMDB page for this movie? Almost every character is credited to two different actors. What’s up with that?
Before I got to the second paragraph of the OP, I was thinking “get the book.”
I’ve never seen the movie version. But I read it several times when I was little (and happened across it a year or two ago). It’s a really good children’s book. They’ll like it. (“What I really like most about Sunday School is that there are no Herdmans here.”)
Shut up shut up shutup shutupshutupSHUTUP!!! AUGHHHHHHHH!!!
The place I work at is presenting this in a week. I’ve been surrounded by it for a month now. The movie (watched multiple times so people can get their roles “just so”). The book. The adapted-from-the-book-play, written by two coworkers. Play practice every night in the room right next to my office. All the attendant drama (pardon the pun) of trying to wrangle a bunch of kids with no acting experience into a cohesive unit. It’s driving me quite mad.
::cough:: Thanks… I feel much better.
But yeah, what everyone else said. Get the book. Then they have the pleasure of reading it to one another, rather than doing the sedentary tv-watching thing.
The book is a thousand times better than the movie. I was really disappointed, because I’ve loved the book for 20-some years now, and the movie just doesn’t live up to it.
Not to be redundant here, but – BUY THE BOOK! I have an Barnes and Noble omnibus (The Barbara Robinson Treasury) version with The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, The Best School Year Ever – both about the Herdmans – and My Brother Louis Measures Worms and other Louis Stories – not about the Herdmans but similarly fun. Also, this year I bought The Besy Halloween Ever and enjoyed it very much. I just checked Amazon and the Treasury is still in print in print. It is in hardback, which I like for a gift. Or, all three Herdman books are available in paperback. BTW, as much as I recommend the Christmas book, my favorite of the three is The Best School Year – wonderful, funny, touching book.
This thread triggered my memory of an orangey-colored book with a kid dressed as an angel in profile, ready to yell that great line, and white text with the title and author. I went down to the basement, to my box of old books from childhood, and it’s not there.
I actually liked seeing the movie as well as the book, but maybe that’s because it was a copy taped (by someone’s mother) off of one of the networks, replete with the usual amusing hangers-on so prevalent with home-taped movies—early-1980s hairstyles, commercials and station promos with Scanimate graphics, a premption announcement reassuring that TJ Hooker Will Be Seen At This Time Next Week, and so on. I found it to have value as a relic as much as an accompaniment to the book.
The cover I’m remembering had a green border with a red foreground, white holidayesque typeface, and the aforementioned Herdman holding a tin-foil star. Neat design for the era, I thought.
I used to read this book along with The House Without A Christmas Tree. For some reason, these two books remain tied together in my mind.
O.K. O.K. O.K., jeez, an 8 year old kid watches a movie on T.V. and likes it and remembers it 20 years later and y’all come in here to beat up on him! No Fair!
Seriously though, thank you for all of the endorsements and further reading recommendations. The movie actually included a lot of narration lifted directly from the book, so I did fully expect it to be good even though I had not read it.
I bought a copy of the book today and plan to read it before wrapping it in gift paper and putting it in the mail. Unfortunately I was only able to find a really crappy edition, a very flimsy paperback the pages of which seem like they’ve already been used to serve fish n’ chips. But, it’s the content that counts and I know they’ll enjoy it.
I will still insist, however, that the movie was good- it’s stuck with me for 20 years after all. Anybody have any insight into the confusing credits on the imdb page???
I have been trying to remember the name of this book for weeks!
I loved it as a kid, and I had some of scenes in my head, but for the life of me couldn’t remember the name.
