This was a super cute holiday book. It had some lessons in it about family and love, but didn't hit you over the head with it.

This book was such a good book. I read it and enjoyed it very much. I highly recommend it to anyone.

Lovely book. My son loved me reading it to him. The targeted audience. It was easy to read and well written

This book was adorable. This book weaves together the original story of A Christmas Carol with a school play. It has a great message too.

Harry Gruber has been chosen to play Scrooge in the school play and with the help of his Mom and little sister Eva he has learned his lines and practices behaving like a nasty old man. Everyone is excited about the performance except for his father who sees it only as an interruption to his work, until he realizes that his work may not be as important as he thinks.

Nice way to introduce young readers to the Christmas Carol themes with current time events.

Bah! Humbug! is a modern retelling of 'A Christmas Carol'. I was excited to read this book based on Michael Rosen's other books and the beautiful illustrations by Toy Ross, but ultimately I was somewhat disappointed.
I think it is a book that would confuse my students because of the constant back and forth between the main character and his father. I would have liked this story more if the plot surrounding the family was more developed rather than all the scripting from the play. I appreciate what the book was trying to do but I think it fell flat of accomplishing the retelling.

I was excited for this book in the beginning - a <I> Christmas Carol </I> retelling, with a clever Dahl-ness (enhanced by Tony Ross’ illustrations).
I don’t know what happened. But, no, I guess I do - it was just chunks of dialogue from a school <I> Christmas Carol </I> play, literal pages of dialogue, interspersed with a ‘modern’ parallel storyline of a workaholic dad seeing the light.
This book just felt so done before and while I enjoyed aspects of the writing, I think kids may have trouble connecting with it.

I would have enjoyed this more if there had been more development of the modern storyline. The family felt stereotypical and cliche, I wanted more from them, especially from the clever sister Eva who is handicapped (this is vaguely mentioned a few times, a la Tiny TIm). I did like that this book showed a brief moment of time, their Christmas Eve, but I felt there were missed opportunities.

I think I’ll just stick to the original in this case, but it seems like a lot of other people enjoyed its festiveness!

Bah! Humbug! A Magical Retelling of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol by Michael Rosen illustrated by Tony Ross is a beautiful wonderful and multi-tasking children's book: not only devoted, first of all at the beloved masterpiece written by Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol; this book includes at the end of the story other special sections with recipes, games for all family.

The originality of the story is that while A Christmas Carol will be a theater's script de facto, and so told in direct language, with the various characters we meet along our way everytime we reread this moving classic, at the same time we will read also the story of the family of Harry, the teenager who plays the role of Scrooge at school. Ray, Harry's dad will discover that he would want to be a better man; Harry's mom discovered A Christmas Carol: never paid too much attention to this classic. Not only: the protagonists in particular the adult ones will discover in profundity what it means to be a family.

The story starts in this way: Harry will portray Scrooge, and he doesn't know where he has put his mask; you know when you are in a hurry and you need to remember, pick up everything and your parents tell you that you must do pretty quickly. That kind of sensation.
Harry would want to be accepted by his dad, pretty skeptical and critical regarding him and this play; distracted by his life it seems that for that man nothing is anymore important.

Ms.Cavani the teacher who helps these students in these drama lessons tries her best for giving at this story the best directions giving the best suggestions to all the various protagonists, although after all it will be life, intuition, to give an inspiration at the various protagonists, thanks to the Christmas's Spirit, let me add this.

This book is an original idea if you want to perform A Christmas Carol in your church, during the Christmas's Time with all your family or also on stage in your little town: buying various books you will assign the various characters, and there you go.

I did it when I was little: I confessed it: we typewrote decades ago, it was 1982, thank Debora! all A Christmas Carol; the novel appeared in the italian Mickey Mouse magazine and it was very well done. We were little and plenty of ideas. I thought that this one could have been the best play to put on stage for Christmas for a magical theatrical representation. I still can't think at another more powerful tale for speaking at the heart of people so profoundly as Dickens does.




Merry Christmas, Everyone!

I thank NetGalley for this eBook.

Harry gets to play Scrooge for his school play. His dad, however, grumbled and complained about having to go see it. During the play, Dad gets a phone call and leaves for business matters. As Harry does an outstanding performance, Dad slowly starts to realize what is most important. This was a super cute retelling of A Christmas Carol. I loved the characters, the humor, and the writing. This book is going to get added to my Christmas reading rotation. My 10-year-old stole my kindle and finished it before I could and she said to make sure everyone knew how good it was and it deserved 50 stars. I have to agree.

Harry Gruben has the lead in a school play. He's playing Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. His parents and his sister are going to the production. Harry just wishes his dad would stop thinking about business or reading emails on his phone and just be his dad for once. Little does he know a little Christmas Carol magic will play out for his dad, while Harry portrays Scrooge on the stage.

A Christmas Carol has been one of my favorite books since childhood. I love the imagery, the characters and the happy ending for the ol' curmudgeon, Ebenezer Scrooge. I re-read the book every holiday season at least once, and read every retelling I can get my hands on. :) When I saw this book's title, I knew I had to read it! I'm glad I did! Not only does the book include a lot of passages and dialogue straight from A Christmas Carol, giving the lines and actions that Harry is performing on-stage...but it weaves in the tale about Harry's dad, preoccupied with business and missing his son's play, and his lesson in priorities.

This story is such a creative way to give the ageless tale of redemption a modern feel....workaholic parents, smartphones, email, computers, instant information.....and kids who just want their parents to stop running and just be mom and dad for awhile.

Lovely book! I'm buying a copy for my A Christmas Carol theme bookshelf....for when I need a reminder of what my top priorities should be. Sometimes the tech needs to be turned off!! :)

This is the first book I've read by Michael Rosen. I'm definitely going to read more of his children's stories, especially one he wrote about the life of Roald Dahl, Fantastic Mr. Dahl. The illustrations by Tony Ross were perfect and really added to the book! He illustrated the Horrid Henry series and many others. The cover for Bah! Humbug! is awesome....very colorful and festive!

**I voluntarily read an advanced readers copy of this book from Candlewick Press via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own. No spirits appeared to point out my poor life choices during the reading of this book. God bless us, every one!**

It seems as if all the classics are getting a remake of one sort or another. Bah! Humbug! brought to mind a situation that I observed several years ago.

I was having lunch at a local, old fashioned luncheonette. Sitting across from me was a man and his son who was about eight years old. The boy had just come from a soccer game and was really excited. He was trying to tell his father all about the game. The problem was that his father just couldn’t tear himself away from his cell phone, totally ignoring his son. In my head I said “you idiot, you will never have this important time back with your son and if you are very lucky the child may just forget that he took a back seat to a cell phone.

This pretty much sums up Bah! Humbug! I loved the illustrations and the humor. I am not sure that a young reader might get all the nuances, but given my experience I am probably wrong about that. It was a very quick, enjoyable read.

Thank you NetGalley and Candlewick Press for an ARC

Sad to say it, I think I expected a little more from this book. We get a very pleasant telling of how a lad enacts Scrooge in the school show, but in giving us a lot of the script of the adaptation I think we could have done with much less. And the modern parallel, the whole point of the thing, where his own father shows Scrooge-like obstinacy in choosing work over and above family, is not quite there either. It looks like he'll get a full set of four ghosts but doesn't, and some of the more contemporary justification for his character and his back-story would appear set to go over the heads of the young readers. Still, it's a reasonably pleasant and quick read – just not ready to join the original Dickens on the classics shelf.

A timely retelling of A Christmas Carol for the whole family about a smartphone-obsessed dad.

This Christmas, join Michael Rosen and Tony Ross with their unforgettable retelling of Charles Dickens's beloved holiday classic. Harry Gruber plays the role of Scrooge in his school's production of "A Christmas Carol," and he is extra nervous about tonight's performance because his father is in the audience -- not away for business, as usual. Will the story's message of Christmas cheer and the redemptive power of love reach his father's distracted Scrooge heart?

This was a lovely story, very easy to read and characters that would be relatable for any child who is reading the book. The only gripe I had was there was sometimes a sudden change in the narrative which mat get confusing for some children - but that is a minor smidgen of a gripe!

I would definitely recommend this book and it would be lovely to read on the lead up to Christmas or even on Christmas eve.

Thank you netgalley.

What an absolutely clever way to work the wonderful truths of Dickens' A Christmas Carol into an applicable, contemporary story.
Harry has the lead in the school Christmas play. He is Scrooge in an exceptionally well adapted version of A Christmas Carol. His sister Eva has helped him to learn the lines, rehearing endlessly, coming to feel part of it all in her own right - and so proud of her brother. Eva's situation in life is not unlike Tiny Tim's; her patience and loving kindness just as evident. Eva and her mother Lisa are engrossed in the production, but Ray, their father, has to leave to attend to ever-present, always most important, business.
Ms. Cavani is a special treat, her character contributing wisdom and compassion, as do so many good teachers.
Bah! Humbug! is a treasure. The original truths are there, just as real and touching as in the original, and the question of whether we can still learn from the past and start anew is answered once again.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

How could you not enjoy this?! An absolute pleasure to read and one I couldnt wait for the kids to share. I ended up staying up all night to devour this! The kids caught up the following day! An absolutely perfect story to read in the run up to Christmas!

ARC Copy...very cute parable alternating between a young boy putting on a school play of Christmas carol (with all the backstage hijinks) and his dad who is a little too per-occupied with his job to actually spent time with his son in particular fully committing to watching the said play.