Changes

|title=Great Joy

|author=Kate DiCamillo

|buy=Yes

|borrow=Yes

|pages=40

|publisher=Walker Books Ltd

|date=November 2007

|isbn=978-1406310832

}}

In the week before Christmas an organ grinder and a monkey appeared on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Vine Street in New York. The organ grinder played music for the passers-by. From her apartment window Frances watched the monkey offering a tin cup to people in the hope that they would give a few cents. If the traffic was quiet she could hear the sad, far-away music. Frances wondered where they went at night - '' ... somewhere'' her mother said. ''Everyone goes somewhere.''

This will be the sort of book that a child will treasure. Its message is not specifically about Christmas and I think it will be returned to again and again, finally moving off the best-loved shelf by the age of about nine or ten. For another book that will stand the test of time and has an equally sumptuous presentation the Bookbag can recommend [[The Thousand Nights and One Night]].

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