A Boy Called Christmas by Matt Haig

A Boy Called Christmas by Matt Haig is a story that will heal and break your heart in one chapter. It will give you hope only for it to be lost on the next page. This is a story about a poor little boy named Nikolas. Nikolas doesn’t have much in his life, his only belongings being a sled and a little doll made out of a turnip that his mother gifted him long, long ago. However, he has his father, the person who he loves most in the entire world and who loves him back equally as much, if not more. His father tells him stories, wonderful, beautiful stories about elves and Elfhelm, the village of the elves, and how it is the most incredible place in the world. Sadly, one day, his father had to leave. He had to leave to look for Elfhelm. He had to leave to make him and Nikolas rich. He promised to come back, but he never did. He was lost in the cold, harsh, lands of Finland, lost looking for the greatest place on Earth. Or at least the greatest place in Finland.

Nikolas’s father left him with his sister, Nikolas’s horrible, horrible, aunt. Nikolas used to think there was hope, but the longer his father was away, the more that hope seemed to dissipate. His aunt would make him sleep outside in the snow, make him scavenge for food the entire day, and give him barely any scraps in return, and worst of all, she tricked him. One day, she kindly offered Nikolas a nice warm bowl of soup, and Nikolas ate it, only to realize that it wasn’t any soup, it was a soup made out of one of his most precious possessions, the sled! Oh, wait no… the turnip! The turnip that his mother made before she died, the turnip that was his only friend, the turnip that was his last memory of his mother. This was the last straw, Nikolas cracked, he needed to find his father and he certainly needed to get away from his aunt. So, Nikolas left his home-that-isn’t-a-home and ventured deeper and deeper into the North of Finland.

Nikolas, however, doesn’t have much better luck than his father, not being able to find Elfhelm either. One day, though, all of that changes. Nikolas is climbing a mountain and almost dies in doing so. He faints on the side of the mountain and when he wakes up, he’s in Elfhelm! He’s surrounded by two elves, Little Noosh, and her grandfather, Father Topo. He finally made it! He made it to Elfhelm! But nothing could have prepared Nikolas for what he saw next. When Little Noosh and Father Topo took him to the big Christmas party at the dining hall, all the elves were sitting at different tables that were segregated by tunic color. Even worse, none of the elves were singing or dancing, they all looked glum and sad. Right at this moment Nikolas knew what he had to do, he not only had to find his father, but he also had to save the elves from their devastatingly sad fate.

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I really enjoyed this novel because of how many emotions it makes you feel. Haig can expertly weave any emotions into the story and it really makes you feel like you’re there with Nikolas, experiencing everything with him. It also deals with issues such as classism, but also has a positive element as well. One of them being that even though Nikolas has had a really tough life, he still endures everything and pushes through, he still has hope. I think that all of these things together just creates a stunning novel and a beautifully emotional read.