Mistery of Christmas by J.Gaardner

A bit offtopic (or maybe not?) but I'd like to review a book "Mistery of Christmas" by Jostein Gaardner.  I have just thrown the book away (rarity in our house with approximately 2-3 thousand books of which some are occasionally passed to others but nearly never disposed of.

I bought it thinking about my 7-year-old to have a book I could read him aloud during advent while cuddling together - we still cherish those moments. And I read it to him, though on times changing words or passages or leaving aside quite a few things. I was glad he was not reading it himself, that I still could correct some things! And afterwords I decided Idon't intend to share this book with anyone or keep it.

The author propagetes the thesis that to drive attention to some injustice or hard situation it is perfectly acceptable to use a third person - innocent, not engaged, not able to make any difference. He declares that even a child may be used for such purpose! As an example of "aggrieved" he has picked Palestinians from Bethlehem from before the 6 days war. The land has been under Jordanian rule at the time but it is not against Jordan that his accusations are pointed - it is against Israel. The book does not show any facts about political and historical situation (which is expected and just in a book for children) yet it is very much embedded in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict giving no information but a strong thesis which makes it pure propaganda. This is manipulation of the reader and considering the expected readers are children it reminds me lectures form Stalinist times which were to shape the children to become good communists.
This alone would have disqualify the book as the lecture for 6-10 years old (judging by the content this is the planned target group) but there is another - more general and even more ominous - reflection that the book implies - that it is all right to hijack a child, use another person, drive parents to despair (the father will never discover his daughter is alive) just to "bring something to attention".

Whatever the situation, doesn't matter how unambiguous (which can NEVER be said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which in itself is misleading; and compared with the fact that her hijacking took place when both Bethlehem and Jerusalem were under Jordanian rule and Jews were forbidden even to enter Jerusalem to pray this is pure lie) - the thesis justifying hijacking is criminal and evil.

We can pick - from whatever time and place in history - situation unambiguous, but does it give anybody any right to hijack a child? This is terrorists' school of thinking according to which each and everyone is just a puppet, to use as one pleases. Just because there are wars and conflicts around the world can our near and dear be killed? hijacked? the bomb exploded? the plane hijacked?
Of course not, but this seems to be the thesis proposed by the author in the book for children making it morally unaccaptable.

And that is why "The mistery of Christmas" has finished in the wase paper basket - the right place for it!