Canadian Christmas Stories in Prose and Verse

Hugh Oliver is Editor-in-chief of OISE Press, Ontario Institute for
Studies in Education.

This is an anthology of 20 stories—three in verse, the remainder in
prose, and most of them reprinted from other sources. Although not their
most memorable pieces, several of Canada’s better-known writers
contributed to the collection, including Margaret Atwood (a poem with
echoes of Dickens’s Christmas Carol), the late Marian Engel, Roy
Bonisteel, the late Margaret Laurence, and Linda Svendsen. A strong
Canadian flavor infuses the whole collection, and most of the stories
exude a spirit of Christmas optimism while eschewing cheap sentiment. As
with carols, the natural season for enjoying these stories is Christmas.