The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder

I'm rarely completely in two minds about a book but I am about The Christmas Mystery

On the positive side, it introduces the true meanings of Christmas, of familial love, bringing people together, and a sense of the history of Christianity since the birth of Christ in an intelligent way.

40 years ago a little girl called Elisabet runs away from her mother in Norway in pursuit of a lamb. 40 years later a yong boy named Joachim is given an old looking advent calender by a bookseller, the calendar was left in his shop by an iterant flower seller called John. As Joachim opens the first door a piece of paper falls out. On it, written in tiny writing, is a story of what happened to Elisabet as she finds herself running with the lamb backwards through time and across the northern hemisphere from Norway to Bethlehem with an entourage that increases each day of the advent calendar and includes the wise men, shepherd, sheep, angels and historial figures. As Joachim's parents find out about the calendar it draws them together and they are able to help John solve the mystery of Elisabet's disappearance.

On the negative side, I found it repetitive and obvious, the homilies of what the story of the nativity teaches us were rather bluntly put with little finesse or subtlety. It is charming but could have been better written.