Review
======

Title: The Last Straw
Author: Paula Palangi McDonald
Illustrator: Carol Pettit Harding
Publisher: Covenant Communications
Genre: Children
Year Published: 2007
Number of Pages: 32
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-59811-410-2
Price: $15.95

Reviewed by: Courtney Miller Santo

In “The Last Straw”, author Paula Palangi McDonald shares her family’s experience of including the European custom of preparing a manger for Christ. The book, which is best suited for children ages six to ten, is realistically illustrated in pastels by Carol Pettit Harding.

As the book opens, a young mother is searching for a way to bring more harmony into her home during the Christmas season. She decides to have the children do secret good deeds for each other and each time they perform an act of kindness or service to place a piece of straw in the manager. She tells the children, “On Christmas Eve, we’ll put Baby Jesus in His little bed, and He’ll sleep that night on a bed made of love.”

While the promotional materials mention that preparing the manger for baby Jesus is a long-standing tradition in many cultures, the actual text does not. I think it would have added weight and depth to this story to drop in just a line or two about this custom. I can still recall a sharing time from Primary in the early 1980s, which suggested this very activity.

The story follows the family as they complete the tasks necessary for this activity -- building a manger, gathering straw and drawing names. It then focuses on the two elder siblings, who are close in age and constantly fighting. This struggle leads to a touching ending and a cleverly written last paragraph that ties into the book’s title.

I read this book to my two small children, and much of the story was lost on them. I found myself explaining it after I read it (which usually happens when the book is too old for them). I also read it to the Primary children in my ward and it seemed to be best received by the children in the older CTR classes and the younger Valiant classes.

The illustrations were straightforward and faithfully followed the narration. I thought the mother looked a bit young and was not immediately recognizable as a mom—none of the children immediately picked her out as the mother and in a few scenes, she looked much more like an older sister.

However, Harding’s illustrations were well crafted and one stands out in particular—a scene near the end where a young boy sits alone in the snow. I did feel though, that many of the scenes did not add to the text, just depicted it. My favorite children’s books illustrations often hint at more than is written and in this case, it would have been perfect to foreshadow the conflict that ultimately plays out during the last few pages.

The story felt a little bit like a longer, third-person version of many of the “latter day saint voices” vignettes in the “Ensign.” The writing was sweet, but plain. A few places felt wordy (and maybe in a perfect pay-no-attention-to-cost world, this book would have been 48 pages) with one page near the end crammed with nearly 300 words.

For a family looking for a way to put the Christ back in Christmas, “The Last Straw” is a good choice.