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Julia Donaldson's Christmas with Princess Mirror-Belle is a Christmassy story for 6 year olds about a reflection who climbs out of the mirror and ruins everything, delightfully.
Ellen has had a cold and her voice is still croaky, so carol singing is off. The ballet show is not. She is one of the maidens turned into swans in a children's Swan Lake, and her costume is white tights, a white T-shirt and a headband with an orange beak on it.
She checks the beak in the changing room mirror. Her reflection tells her off for letting the sorcerer get her too.
That is Mirror-Belle. She looks exactly like Ellen and she is nothing like her. Royalty, apparently. Everything that has ever happened to her is enormous and magical, and she announces it at volume in front of Ellen's ballet teacher.
There are two stories here. In the first, Mirror-Belle decides the swan costumes are real and sets off to find the sorcerer and break the spell. In the second it is Christmas Eve, Ellen is dressed as Sleeping Beauty for a party at Katy's, and Mirror-Belle arrives in long white gloves because she is in constant danger of pricking her finger and sleeping for another three hundred years. Father Christmas turns up. Mirror-Belle is not impressed by his shoes.
The joke never wears out, and that is what makes this so good to read aloud. Mirror-Belle says something outrageous. A grown-up tries to be sensible about it. Ellen goes pink and says nothing, because nobody ever believes her anyway. Madame Jolie the ballet teacher is a gift, and her accent is written out on the page, which is great fun to attempt out loud.
At the back there are things to make. Festive biscuits, potato-print wrapping paper, a paper chain of Christmas trees, a party hat, a calendar to give away. Useful if you have a wet December afternoon to fill.
One practical note. These two stories have appeared in other Mirror-Belle books before this Christmas edition gathered them up, so it is worth a quick check of what is already on the shelf.
If your reader takes to her, they will want to know how the two girls met. In the first Princess Mirror-Belle book, Ellen is off school with chicken pox, scratching at a spot on her nose, when the girl in the bathroom mirror dodges sideways and warns her she will turn into a toad.
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