A Christmas Dream

Written by Louisa May Alcott

Narrated by Lauren Ambrose

Two wonderful holiday stories that evoke the true meaning of the season.

A Christmas Dream and How It Came True

Ten-year-old Effie lives the life most children dream of—with every day filled with delicious treats and wonderful toys. One night she experiences a dream that will forever change the meaning of Christmas for her. In it, she meets a group of under privileged children and she is inspired to create a Christmas they will never forget.

Rosa's Tale

It is said that every Christmas Eve, for one hour's time beginning at the magical hour of midnight, animals are given the gift of speech. Imagining all that her equine friend, Rosa, might have to say, young Belinda is shocked to hear the sad story of Rosa's life and her fears of what the future might hold.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Oct 9, 2007
• ISBN: 9780061554629

Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) was an American novelist, poet, and short story writer. Born in Philadelphia to a family of transcendentalists—her parents were friends with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau—Alcott was raised in Massachusetts. She worked from a young age as a teacher, seamstress, and domestic worker in order to alleviate her family’s difficult financial situation. These experiences helped to guide her as a professional writer, just as her family’s background in education reform, social work, and abolition—their home was a safe house for escaped slaves on the Underground Railroad—aided her development as an early feminist and staunch abolitionist. Her career began as a writer for the Atlantic Monthly in 1860, took a brief pause while she served as a nurse in a Georgetown Hospital for wounded Union soldiers during the Civil War, and truly flourished with the 1868 and 1869 publications of parts one and two of Little Women. The first installment of her acclaimed and immensely popular “March Family Saga” has since become a classic of American literature and has been adapted countless times for the theater, film, and television. Alcott was a prolific writer throughout her lifetime, with dozens of novels, short stories, and novelettes published under her name, as the pseudonym A.M. Barnard, and anonymously.

Reviews for A Christmas Dream

[philsyphe · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

So why did I, a grown man, decide to read a story for girls? Because I consider Louisa May Alcott one of the greatest writers ever to put pen to paper."Charming" is perhaps the most overused word to describe this author's writing but I don't think there's a better term.A charming read it is.