A Matchbox Christmas and Other Stories

By Sharon Abimbola Salu

A Matchbox Christmas and Other Stories is a collection of 12 Christmas short stories for young readers. The twelve short stories include:

A Matchbox Christmas
Dear Mary, Dear Joseph
Modele’s First Christmas
Christmas Gele
Christmas Fowl Strikes Back
Christmas Goat Breaks a Sweat
The Sweetest Carol
From Harmattan to Snow
A Doll’s Unusual Christmas
Loud Christmas, Quiet Christmas
Grandpa and the Christmas Clock
Christmas Shoes

These heartwarming short stories feature themes from an African childhood and include tales of friendship, courage, kindness, hope and joy.  Perfect for bedtime and reading out aloud, young readers and early readers will love these Christmas themed children’s short stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sharon Abimbola Salu
• Release date: Dec 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9791220878562

Book preview

1: A Matchbox Christmas

In a quaint little village surrounded by a great mountain, there lived a man, his wife and their son, Tobi.  Their village was quite extraordinary: the houses were made of matchboxes.

And so it was called Matchbox Village. 

The people themselves were very, very tiny, because you had to be really tiny to fit inside a matchbox.  Although most people cannot imagine living in a matchbox, the people in this village knew nothing else.  Their children went to schools made of matchboxes, and even their King lived in a matchbox palace. 

Of all the celebrations that took place in Matchbox Village, Christmas was the most special.  People were free to celebrate Christmas in any way they wanted as long as they kept one rule:

No music.

There could be no singing, no tapping, no clapping, no whistling, no humming, no drumming and absolutely no music of any kind at any time, especially at Christmas.   

Tobi loved Christmas and music.  He heard music in the clap of the horses’ hooves on the ground, the sound of the rushing wind and the clink and clank of tools in his father’s workshop.  He heard music everywhere, and he knew that there could be no true celebration without music. 

Tobi’s father was a gifted craftsman.  There was nothing he could not make with his hands. 

But his absolute favorite things to make were music boxes. 

Before the King banned music, people came from far and wide to buy music boxes from him.  After the ban, less people visited the craftsman.  And even fewer people bought music boxes.  Because of the King’s decree, the craftsman had to make music boxes that played no music.  People called them silent song boxes.

Some people bought these music boxes to remember the time when music was heard all over the village.  Others bought them as a sign of hope, that one day, music would return to Matchbox Village.

Every year, before Christmas, Tobi asked his parents the same question:

Why is there no music in Matchbox Village?