The Christmasaurus and the Naughty List (Christmasaurus #3) by Tom Fletcher

Book Review Feb 28, 2023

My review

4/5 stars

My son and I were enjoying reading this series so much that we decided not to let the fact that Christmas was over stop us from finishing the trilogy. We read The Christmasaurus and the Naughty List as a bedtime story for the duration of January.

This time round, the format of the book differs a little from the other two. William Trundle is relegated to the place of secondary character and the focus shifts wholly on to the Christmasarus and his mission to save Christmas. This time round, he has to travel the globe helping children get back on to the Nice List.

I really enjoyed the focus on the Christmasaurus. It gave us a chance to see the character develop outside of his relationship with William Trundle. He was shown to be a charming, warm, expressive little dinosaur, and completely dedicated to helping the Big Man literally deliver the goods at Christmas. This is a great character for kids to relate to, and my son adored him whole-heartedly. And don't worry, William is still in the story and gets his own mini-plot that keeps him as an important part of the Christmasaurus' world.

It was fun to see children outside of the Trundle/Payne family in this book. William and Brenda were fantastically written characters, but they've had a lot of focus. I particularly liked how the author managed to link his other books into this world by exploring the stories of the other kids; it gave the story more depth and realism.

My only hesitation with this book was that it felt a little preachier than its' predecessors. The nature of the story means that each of the kids has an important lesson to learn to get them back on the Nice List. This, in itself, is not a problem; most kids' books have some kind of lightly hidden message that teaches the reader about life in some way, so I was expecting some kind of message. My issue is that at certain points in the story, the art of lightly hiding the message in the story was lost, and the author just hid the reader over the head with a very overt life lesson. One that sticks out for me is at the end when one of the children (I will avoid spoilers on who) has to admit lying to their parent and the parent writes something along the lines of "lying may feel easier at the time, but the truth is more important". While this is an important lesson for kids to learn, I wasn't a huge fan of the fact that it was just spelt out for them in the middle of the story - it felt jarring and took our focus away from the rather brilliant story that we were enjoying.

Despite this, I still adored reading this with my son, and he was excited to read it with me each night. It was a great idea for a story, and not something I've come across in that format before. It felt fresh and fun, and we both really hope that we get to visit the Christmasaurus' world at some point again in the future.

Book blurb

You know about the Naughty List, right? Well, this year, the Christmasaurus is on a mission to track down children who have found themselves on the Naughty List to help them turn naughty to nice!

This is a collection of stories about mischievous kids learning the error of their ways, but it's also about sharing the true spirit of Christmas and realising that sometimes things aren't quite as they first appear...