ALL IS CALM, ALL IS BRIGHT: True Stories of Christmas

This seasonal collection of short personal anecdotes is uneven in quality; alongside the humdrum and hackneyed are genuinely inspiring and honest pieces, such as Jeannie S. Williams's "Where's the Baby Jesus?" or Susan Warren's "Angels of Forgiveness." Another standout is Kathleen Boratko Ruckman's "A Christmas Miracle," which some readers may recall from last winter's Christmas in My Heart anthology; in the story, Ruckman describes the 1908 diphtheria plague that nearly wiped out her progenitors in Eastern Europe. Many of the more lackluster contributions have an out-of-the-mouths-of-babes quality, for they inevitably turn on some profound insight that has been innocently uttered by a small child. (Oct.)