Doug Barnes is a kid in junior high in 1960 in a small town 30 miles from New York City (Dave Barry grew up in a small town, Armonk, NY). In the opening paragraph of The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog, he introduces himself and his town.
“My name is Doug Barnes and this stuff happened on Christmas Eve in my town, which is Asquont, New York. According to Mr. Purcell, who’s my Social Studies teacher, Asquont is an Indian name that means some Indian thing like ‘Hunting Place in the Great Forest,’ but sometimes I think it was just a joke by the Indians to get white people to say ‘Asquont’.”
According to Dave Barry himself, the best part of this story is the bats, and the best part of pageants is “the shepherds, because they get to carry sticks.” Doug shares this opinion and is very excited to be promoted from one of the three kings to a shepherd, because of the sticks. (Okay, it’s not as funny when I write it…go get the book.)
The book isn’t quite the Christmas classic, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, with the Herdmans and the chaos, but then again, Barry’s book is only 117 pages, and full of vintage ads and photos from the 1960’s, so there wasn’t as much time and space for the mass pandemonium. Doug sets up the stage of the town and the three churches in it: Episcopalians on one end, Catholics on the other and the Methodists with no manger scene in the middle. One year the junior high boys start a “War of the Nativity” by putting a Yankees cap on the Episcopalian Joseph. It escalates and ends with the Episcopalians putting a bra on the Catholic Mary and the Catholics going nuts…it is worth the trip to Barnes&Noble in the cold and pushy holiday mass of humanity for that part alone (and the bats, that’s all I’ll say). It’s classic Barry.
Even with the junior high-esque humor of Dave Barry and the main character, it is very touching and honoring of Christmas. Pick it up for yourself or to put in someone’s stocking. It’s a bit pricy at $15.95, but worth it.
