Taylor Garland’s Home for the Holidays is a Christmas story for 10 year olds about a girl trying to feel festive in seventy degrees of Florida sunshine.<\/p>\n
Alyssa Sing moved from Massachusetts in August, because her mum got a much better job. It’s the eighth of December, her mum has just come back from a run in shorts, and they’re opening the windows to let the warm air in.<\/p>\n
Alyssa doesn’t complain about it. That’s rather the trouble with Alyssa.<\/p>\n
Her brother Cody is a year above her and collects friends without trying. Three sleepovers since term started (Alyssa has been to none, because she hasn’t yet made a friend close enough to be asked).<\/p>\n
So she says the right thing to her mum, apologises for having an opinion, and then catches herself saying “back home” about a place that isn’t home any more.<\/p>\n
Who hasn’t done that after a move?<\/p>\n
What she does have is knitting. She learned it from Ryder at her old school, who started the knitting club and taught her everything, and she’s a perfectionist about it. One scarf can take weeks. She embroiders snowflakes along the edges when the mood strikes at eleven at night.<\/p>\n
Three finished scarves. That’s the lot.<\/p>\n
And that’s where the story gets going, because those three scarves are about to be the reason somebody talks to her.<\/p>\n
It’s warm and low-stakes. Nobody is cruel. The worst thing happening to Alyssa is that she’s lonely and far too polite to say so, which will be painfully recognisable to a child who has just changed schools.<\/p>\n
Two things to flag. It’s American throughout, with OJ for breakfast, a mall, dollars, Thanksgiving and temperatures in Fahrenheit.<\/p>\n
And the characters are a little older than your reader. Alyssa is in seventh grade and Cody in eighth, so in our terms they’re at secondary school. Nothing in it is unsuitable. It just means a younger reader is looking up at them rather than across at them.<\/p>\n
If the new-family-at-Christmas part appeals more than the new-school part, Let It Snow is the other book in this series. Chloe is off to a snowy lodge for the weekend to meet her dad’s girlfriend, and the girlfriend’s daughter, for the very first time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taylor Garland’s Home for the Holidays is a Christmas story for 10 year olds about a girl trying to feel festive in seventy degrees of Florida sunshine. Alyssa Sing moved from Massachusetts in August, because her mum got a much better job. It’s the eighth of December, her mum has just come back from a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":11588,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":7061,"lr_next_read_anchor":"Let It Snow","lr_seo_hook":"A knitter with no snow, no friends yet and three scarves to her name."},"book_tag":[18],"age_group":[29],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[965],"class_list":["post-7060","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-animal-books","age_group-books-for-10-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-taylor-garland"],"yoast_title":"Celebrate the Season – Home for the Holidays by Taylor Garland | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A knitter with no snow, no friends yet and three scarves to her name. For ages 10+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n