The Best Christmas Pageant Ever audiobook

Have now read this aloud to my kids two years in a row. One year I hope to be able to make it through the end without sobbing.2012 reread: It's just not Christmas until you've cried over this book!2013 reread: Managed to hold it together until the very last paragraph. My kids think I'm nuts for bawling at the end of every Christmas story I read them. One day I hope they'll be crying with me!2014: Ugh. So much crying at the end! Made it through most of it, though.2015: Blubbered my way through the end.2017: Cheated the open sobbing by having the two oldest take turns reading the ending in the car on the way to a family dinner. We had to sit in the parking lot for five minutes to finish (per the kids' request). I was able to bawl silently in the dark. I really felt like the 13yo and 9yo GOT it this year.2018: Made it to the last page. Will never be able to finish that dry-eyed. Handed it to the 14yo.2019: Last three pages read by the 15yo. Also had the 11yo do a bit of the reading, because she really wanted to!2020: Pulled it out to read the finish last night, my now 12yo daughter said, Do I need to read the last page for you? Yes, the last three pages, actually!2021: Read this to my children on a cruise ship in the Caribbean, and you know what? Still the best. Funny, poignant, sob-inducing.2022: Barely made it into the last chapter. Daughter had to read the ending.

Aż szkoda, że nie jest bardziej rozbudowana!

After some problems with one Christmas book (which I had to delete), I found myself under the spell of this book. It amply deserves all the praise it got and is getting.Going in, I didn't have many expectations and the first chapter seemed tepid. But then that direction the story took enhanced its quality. For a feelgood book, it was never sentimental. It was realistic, wise, funny even.I didn't get any cheap vibes coming from the ending. Those villainous little children didn't seem to change for the better. But the Christmas pageant, was truly a miracle that was rooted in realism. I think the author caught lightning in a bottle. I fully recommend it.

This charming story is timeless. Reading this, I realize that I red this as a child and it brought it all back to me. The story is easy to read in one setting. Growing up in the church and seeing some of these pageants, this story is so funny for me. The church puts on the exact same Christmas pageant each year. At school, there is a poor family who are very mean, they are the school bullies and they disrupt everything. The story is told from the point of view of a child of the pageant director, but we don't really know them. One Sunday, a boy says the best thing about Sunday School is there are no Herdmans, the juvenile delinquent family. Well, they show up and take over the play, being the only ones who want roles in the pageant.They don't know the stories and have to learn it all. Through their questions, it makes the other kids learn and think about the story in different ways. It is an amusing story. The end is a bit cheesy, but it works and I remember loving this story as a kid. All that chaos they brought to the pageant was funny and it makes for a good story. This story is as old as me, how wild is that. I'm glad I found this again. I think there is a bad movie of this too, somewhere.

The best Christmas story EVERI re-read this book every year. This story, told through the eyes of the rough and tough Herdman children is beautiful. It is magical to watch them change as they learn about the birth of Jesus

Oh! This book makes me smile. The value of this little volume is inversely related to its size. You can read this in bed on Christmas Eve and still be well rested for Christmas Day. The Herdmans are infamous around town and then they show up at church and decide to star in the Christmas pageant. Our narrator's mother is directing the pageant and we get to view the entire event from this perspective. There are some good laughs, some tears, and a reminder of the reason for the season. Highly recommended as a family read aloud.

A very cute and very fun book for the holiday season!If you are used to the usual run-of-the-mill nativity presentation at your local religious institution and want a fresh take that is a bit out of the ordinary, it is worth giving The Best Christmas Pageant Ever a try! When a church goes to put on the same old nativity, some local ragamuffins are interested in participating (mainly due to the promise of snacks). Over the course of the story, these seemingly uncouth kids help those who have been taking the Christmas Story for granted open their eyes to the true meaning of Christmas.I read this one out loud with my kids and we had a great time with it. The dialogue was fun and I loved hearing my wife and kids snicker after reading off a humorous line. So, not only was the book great, but it was a fantastic family read along experience. A great way to celebrate the holidays!

4 starsThis was a delightful and heartwarming holiday book. I can see myself re-reading it in the future! Audio book source: HooplaStory Rating: 4 starsNarrators: CJ Critt Narration Rating: 3 starsGenre: Children’s ChristmasLength: 1h 52n

"Hey! Unto you a child is born!"That's what Christmas is about, but it's so easy for longtime Christians to forget. We know the story of Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus, and we've memorized songs about angels and Wise Men. Somewhere along the line, it's easy for it to become rote knowledge, rather than something deep and profound that touches your heart. But what would happen if you watched a whole family learn this glorious mystery? A family not filled with churchy people--in fact, filled with kids that make churchy people turn and run. I loved how vividly the Herdmans were painted, both before they took over the pageant and after. You knew them well enough to know why this was a disaster in the making, which just made the transition that much more powerful. This book had me laughing out loud on every page up till the last twenty or so. Then I was so touched by how the Herdmans were swept away by the story of Jesus--while still remaining Herdmans at the core--that I was nearly moved to tears.

8 out of 10 Nice, a short little story about Christmas themes. My mother read this to me and my siblings when I was little, and although I'm not going to say that I remember a lot of the things in this book, I will say that I remember being really compelled by this as a kid and that I would recommend reading or getting this book for children. Fond memories!

I love Christmas, but that doesn't mean I like the fact that the Hallmark Mystery Channel betrays me every year and goes non-stop Christmas goo from freacking October into January. October through January is the Christmas season? TNT, you failed me too this year. Bring me back The Closer.Anyhoo, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is a wonderfully acerbic yet still tear-jerking Christmas story. Perfect to put a sneer of joy on the Scrooge in your life. The Herdman children are "those" kids that pretty much every school has. They steal, smoke, drink and cuss, and that's just the kindergarteners. Just kidding, kind of. They manage to finagle themselves into the Christmas pageant then bring the real meaning of what being born in a manger is really like to everyone. Yes, you will laugh over their bad kid antics then cry as they realize the story they are telling. Read many years ago.

An unruly pack of siblings, the Herdmans terrorize the school, back in the day when bullying, neglected children, and vandalism were simply hilarious. The girls smoke cigars in the bathroom!—what could be funnier than that?This seasonal classic was previously unknown to me. The illustrations in this edition are grim and murky, like something out of Dickens. It does manage to be amusing, in that it is appropriately over the top and makes fun of everybody, even the minister's wife and the local busybody. The pageant promises to be a spectacular disaster, but somehow, even in a children's book aimed at the Christmas market, contrives to provide some guidance on the true meaning of the season. What a plot twist that turned out to be!There. Now my seasonal activities are all taken care of. Time to hibernate until a chorus of songbirds wake me in the spring.

The six Herdman children are a nightmare--undisciplined, vicious, ignorant, and the bane of every adult's existence. When a chance lie brings them to church in late November for the first time ever, everyone thinks they'll get bored of it. But late November is when the church Christmas pageant starts, and soon the Herdmans have blackmailed or bullied everyone to the point that when the pageant organizer asks for volunteers for Mary, Joseph, the three Wise Men, and the Angel of the Lord, no one speaks up but the Herdmans. It's going to be the worst Christmas pageant ever...maybe.This short, hilarious book never fails too make me cry at the end even as I spend most of the book laughing. I love the way in which the unnamed narrator comes to see the oh-so-familiar Christmas story in a new light. I work with children in my church and while we (thankfully) have never done a Christmas pageant, I can appreciate how hard it is--and how much harder it would be if you had six hellions in the key roles, none of whom know anything about Jesus beyond taking His name in vain. I imagine the Herdmans went home after the pageant, back to their old lives of fighting and swearing and smoking and blackmailing their peers, but I like to think they went home a little changed, too. Not much, because that would be unbelievable, and the beauty of this story is that everything that happens feels real. But enough that they can remember that time when somebody believed they could be more than everyone else thought they were.Re-read 12/21/20: Someday I might make it through the whole book without crying, but I hope not.