The Best Christmas Pageant Ever - The Book and the Movie

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever was written by Barbara Robinson in 1972. An ABC television Christmas special based on the book was produced in 1983 and later released on VHS then DVD. This story, narrated by a little girl, is a hilarious tale of six delinquent "welfare" children who torment everyone in their paths. The Herdmans, whose father had left them and mother worked so much she was hardly ever home, "were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world. They lied and stole and smoked cigars (even the girls) and talked dirty and hit little kids and cussed their teachers and took the name of the Lord in vain and set fire to Fred Shoemaker's old broken-down toolhouse." That opening line of the book describes the clan perfectly - they bully kids and scare adults as well. The narrator's little brother in particular was picked on by Leroy Herdman, who stole his lunch daily. One day the little boy exploded and told him that he didn't care, that he could get all the food and snacks he wanted at Sunday School. This statement caused Leroy to bring all of his brothers and sisters to church, where they stole money from the collection basket and went to a meeting about the upcoming Christmas pageant. The narrator's mother, Grace, was in charge of the pageant that year because the woman normally in charge of it had fallen and broken her leg; on a normal year, children like the Herdmans would never have been allowed to even go to the pageant meeting. But Grace let them come, and before the meeting was over, the Herdmans all had key roles: Imogene was Mary; Ralph was Joseph; Leroy, Ollie, and Claude were the three wise men; and Gladys was the angel of the Lord. Imogene threatened the girl who normally played Mary in the pageant, and told her if she volunteered to be Mary this year she would drop a pussy willow seed in her ear and a pussy willow bush would grow out of it. Though the minister and entire congregation were convinced the Herdmans would ruin the pageant, it indeed turned out to be the "best Christmas pageant ever" - the wise men did not fight coming up the aisle, and even came bearing a gift of a Christmas ham that was in their Christmas basket from the welfare office. Ralph and Imogene reverently entered as Mary and Joseph, and Imogene ended up being overwhelmed about the true meaning of Christmas and even cried. Gladys screamed "HEY! Unto you a child is BORN!" and pushed the rest of the angels up on to the stage, but everyone thought it was very funny. The town and the school learned that even the worst kids just needed some guidance, teaching, and a little love.

Although the movie version of this book was well done, the acting was commendable, and there were funny moments, it did not even come close to conveying how hilarious the book actually is. As with most movies based on books, so much of the story and dialogue had to be left out that you really missed much of the humor. The author did a fantastic job using the first-person narrator recounting incidents involving the Herdmans, and I laughed out loud many times while reading. I expected so much slapstick from the movie because the book was so entertaining that I was disappointed.

I remember when I was in third grade, sometime around 1982, one of my good friends read this book constantly. She never grew tired of it, and now I know why. Even then the book was ten years old. My son's teacher also read him this story when he was in the third grade, in 2006. It's a story that young and old will enjoy over and over for generations to come.