King of Kings - Softcover

Susan Hill

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0744543266 ISBN 13: 9780744543261

Publisher: Walker Childrens Paperbacks, 1995

Synopsis

A Christmas story about a lonely old widower. Since his wife died, old Mr Hegarty has lived alone, with just his cat Cat and dog Jacko for company. The last in the street before the wharves and warehouses, his house is one of the few that remain in the area. Most of them have been pulled down and replaced by building sites full of cranes, concrete girders and men in hard hats. Mr Hegarty passes them on his way to the old Lane, whose busy market and cafe are an enduring refuge in an ever-changing world. It is in the Lane that Mr Hegarty finds himself one Christmas Eve, enjoying the cheerful bustle, before returning home in the dark. It seems like it will be just another quiet, uneventful Christmas for the lonely old widower. But then, in the middle of the night, he hears a faint crying that leads him to a disused church and a very special discovery. Susan Hill is the author of "Air and Angels", "Mrs de Winter", "The Woman in Black", "Can it be True?" (winner of the Smarties Book Prize), "The Glass Angels", "Septimus Honeydew", "Friends Next Door", "A Very Special Birthday", "Beware Beware", "The Walker Book of Ghost Stories" and "The Christmas Collection". John Lawrence is a winner of the Francis Williams Book Illustration Award, and has twice been shortlisted for the Emil/Kurt Maschler Award, for "Emily's Own Elephant" and "A New Treasury of Poetry". He has also illustrated "Watership Down" and "Christmas in Exeter Street".

About this title

From Booklist

Ages 6-9. Although there is a definite adult and British feel to this picture book, there is also a rich sentiment to it that transcends age or country. Mr. Hegarty lives alone near the wharves and warehouses. Although most of the flats in the neighborhood are gone, and his wife is dead, Mr. Hegarty and his dog, Jacko, and Cat the cat still make a life for themselves, even if it's one of sameness: tea, clean the hearth, wash up, sleep. But you can't pretend that Christmas Eve is a night like any other. They spend a quiet night together until the stillness is broken by the sound of a cry. When Mr. Hegarty goes downstairs to check it out, he is amazed to find a baby on the steps. Now Christmas turns into a flurry of activity as he brings the baby to the hospital and answers questions from hospital staff and police. Later, he returns to the hospital, where he visits the baby in a small crib draped and decorated as it is every year for the first baby born on Christmas. "King of Kings," Mr. Hegarty murmurs. Lawrence's watercolors, detailed with pen, portray the sweep and grit of the London dockside, yet also tenderly reveal, through expression and posture, the loneliness that people can feel when they are by themselves. A most interesting holiday selection. Ilene Cooper

From Kirkus Reviews

The author of The Glass Angels (1992) offers a briefer Christmas story: an appealing vignette set near the docks of contemporary London, where a few residents cling to old homes among warehouses and building sites. There, Mr. Hegarty--widower, retired watchman--is weathering a solitary Christmas Eve when he's awakened by a cry. Someone has left a new baby outside the church, and though the old man has never in his life held a tiny child, he carries it to the nearby King's Hospital. It's 3 a.m by the time he's answered questions and been plied with tea; next morning, returning for news, he's welcomed once again--and learns that the baby is being honored as the first to be born this Christmas Day. The story is gentle, understated, and imbued with the kind of detail that endears Rumer Godden to her readers; Lawrence's expertly limned illustrations are precisely observed, freely rendered, and suffused with a gray, wintry light, warmed by firelight and the colors of woolly blankets. An inviting book for a holiday evening. (Fiction/Picture book. 5+) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Walker Childrens Paperbacks
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0744543266
• ISBN 13: 9780744543261
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 32