Darul de Craciun

by Lurlene McDaniel

Thirteen-year-old Casey's mother always said that Casey's sixteen-year-old sister marched to the beat of a different drummer. But it isn't until Briana runs away with an older boy that Casey begins to understand what her mother meant. When Briana returns home alone and pregnant, Casey and her mother try to help Briana come to terms with her options.

It was already complicated to think about Briana's choices and then things change suddenly again. When Briana is in a serious accident, Casey's mother sees things one way. Although Casey understands her mother's reaction, she feels she must try to convince her mother to make a different decision. Casey needs to grow up fast and do what she can to maintain Briana's legacy. Will she be able to make her mother understand that there is only one way to accept Briana's gift?

Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Novels, Teen

191 pages, Paperback

First published October 10, 2006

About the author

Lurlene McDaniel (born c. 1948) is an author who has written over 50 young adult books. She is well known for writing about characters struggling with chronic and terminal illnesses, such as cancer, diabetes, and organ failure.


Other places to find her are...
https://www.facebook.com/lurlenemcdan...
http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/aut...
http://www.youtube.com/user/LurleneMc

Reviews

[Sandra Deaconu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Drăguțică și realistă, dar mult prea tristă pentru perioada asta.

,,E mult mai ușor să încalci o promisiune decât să te ții de ea, zise mama."

,,Viața nu e niciodată dreaptă, răspunde Cynthia. Dar, dincolo de asta, trebuie să-i facem față, nu?"

,,Sunt o frunză luată de briza puternică a iernii, care nu-mi dă drumul."

[Loredana (Bookinista08) · Rating 4 out of 5]

O carte pe care nici nu știu cum s-o descriu. Surprinzătoare? Cred că da. Cam ăsta e cuvântul potrivit. Și adevărul e că m-a surprins prin cât de mult mi-a plăcut. Nu mă așteptam.
Da, așa cum au mai scris persoane in recenzii, este oarecum deprimantă și nu chiar potrivită pentru atmosfera de Crăciun, dar pe mine nu m-a deranjat asta. E scrisă simplu (și tradusă cam anapoda din engleză), dar pe mine nu m-a ținut în priză scriitura, cât personajele și mai ales povestea in sine. Voiam să vad cum se termină povestea familiei Scanland... Și adevărul e că sfârșitul a fost perfect ales! Plin de speranță și totuși pe cât de realist se poate. Autoarea e talentată.
Acum, despre personaje. Fiindcă romanul e scris din perspectiva lui Sissy, sora mai mică a Brianei, se citește oarecum ca o carte Young adult. ÎNSĂ! Este și nu prea.
Să o zic pe aia sinceră, cartea asta a venit ca o gură de aer proaspăt pentru mine. Prea mult am citit despre adolescente "deosebite" dar neînțelese, rebele și mult prea deștepte pentru vârsta lor, adolescente care zic că sunt banale dar vai ies mereu in evidență cu diverse talente. Ei bine... Sissy mi-a fost extrem de dragă! Aflată la polul complet opus față de sora ei Briana, Sissy este o puștoaică de 14 ani complet normală, care își ascultă și respectă mama, care nu prea iese in evidenta DECÂT cu talentul ei muzical, dobândit după ore și ore de practică. Mi-a plăcut enorm relația dintre Sissy și mama ei. Pe de o parte, Sissy este ascultătoare, și nu fiindcă "așa trebuie" ci fiindcă așa este felul ei, este o ființă blândă și docilă, având o inteligență emoțională peste medie pentru un copil de vârsta ei. Pe de altă parte,am rămas uimită sa văd modul în care mama lui Sissy o tratează. Ca pe propriul copil, dar în același timp și ca pe o persoană diferită, ale cărei opinii și gânduri și sentimente au valoare. Ambele s-au susținut una pe cealaltă de-a lungul întregii cărți, fără a fi cuplul stereotipic de mamă-fiica. Relația lor nu a fost una forțată, ci una cat se poate de naturala. Mi-ar placea sa vad mai des astfel de relații între părinți și copiii lor adolescenți în cărțile YA. Mi-a ajuns de copii puberi cu probleme de comportament și de părinți ale căror trăsături de "căpcăun" sunt exagerate voit.
In fine. Mi-a plăcut extrem de mult dinamica dintre personajele acestei cărți! Și simt că m-aș înțelege de minune cu Sissy. Tocmai de aceea, desi scriitura nu a excelat prin nimic, personajele și povestea de viață au făcut tot farmecul lecturii. Îi acord 4 stele fara a exagera deloc. Le merită, din punctul meu de vedere. 👍

[Brittany.t · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brainna's gift is a good book. it is about a girl that gets pregnant. then the boy friend leaves her. It is a sad story cause she gets prego and she is only 16. but she ran away from home and now is working at wal-mart. She lives back at home with her mom and sister. i like this book because my sisters name is breanna and it is a good book. Also it can be a really sad book because she has a stroke when she is prego. Has to live ona machine until the baby is fully born. Then when the baby was born the mom and sister looked after it and sent the daughter off to heaven.

[Darius Christian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Briana's gift is about 17 year old Brianna who doesn't exactly want to live the life her mom wants. From partying to moving to LA with her boyfriend, Briana returns home pregnant and alone. When they find out they try to sort through their options, Briana has a serious accident where her brain aneurysm ruptures. She's pronounced brain dead when arriving to the hospital and her family is left with the choice to let her live on a ventilator or pull the plug. They let her be on the life support until she is due with the unnamed child she is carrying. When her daughter is born, her daughter is names Briana because the baby was a gift to them from Briana.

[alyssa · Rating 2 out of 5]

did not like it. her books is always the same background. need to change it up a bit. change the settings or something intersting, mysterious.

[Anna Hardesty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a cute/sweet read, it was short but it was memorable, I can promise you that. The love between the two sisters really tugs at your heart and makes you wonder what you would do in Sissy's shoes.

[Melenia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent read; although, it wrapped up to quickly to satisfy me.

[Briana Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the first books I read, and I'll be honest I chose it because the spelling of Briana is the same of my actual name. This book is really small but it covers a lot of deep topics. The main girl deals with new things going on in her life all while juggling her friends and school. It was a really good what I would call "coming of age" book. I really liked the style of the author as well and plan on looking up more works by her.

[Mary Shelton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved this book. Even though it was unbelievably sad at times it still had the hopeful and happy elements that kept it going. It was very fast paced at times but honestly that didn’t really bother me. This books was personally really relatable to my past experiences and trauma but in a good way. This book was so good!

[Karley · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was really good but really sad at the same time not the best ending but it was still good

[*Weebles* · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my God! What an awesome book! Talk about ugly crying lol. It was so sad, but so good.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

i think it was awesome i cried on some parts but sweet

[Jenn Brouwer · Rating 5 out of 5]

fast and easy read with a good story.

[Rachel Yzenbaard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read many of Lurlene McDaniel books. This one, though not my favorite, was still good and entertaining. It is not as in depth as some of hers can go but still a good book.

[Rainna Treadway · Rating 5 out of 5]

My all time favorite book. This book made me cry. It's a sad book with a happy ending. If I could give it more then 5 stars I would.

[Stephanie Sloan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! Such a sad story but I'm so glad I got the chance to read it

[Mackenzie Vanden Heuvel · Rating 4 out of 5]

soul shattering as a middle schooler but loved it

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

First off let me say that this really wasn't my favourite book by Lurlene Mcdaniel at all but I did like it. I liked it because this book while not being her strongest work in my opinion it is written in the usual way most of her older books were written in being from a first person point of view.

I liked Sissy though I hated her name but I found her mother to be an irritating woman who just because her one teenage daughter (Briana) got pregnant it was as if she had forgotten that she even had another child. At times I was very angry at her mother for shoving Sissy aside because Sissy's world was just as affected by the news of Briana's prrgnancy as anyone but she was being the mature one while the mother was just acting out much like a small child.

When Briana comes home and starts straightening her life out she gets a job at the local wal-mart and one day suffers from an anuerysm. She ended up becoming brain damaged and all their mother could think of was giving the unborn baby away as soon as she was born. Sissy wasn't taken into account and her mother would not even allow her to put up a Christmas tree that year because she was too caught up in her suffering to see that her daughter was hurting too.

Now Sissy is the advocate for keeping her sister's baby she out right refuses to allow her mother to give her niece away. And boy does she fight. I love how much strength that Sissy had and how she didn't give up.

My favourite part in the book was the end where her mother and her take her niece home from the hospital and the neighbors offer to help them with raising the baby since her mother has arthritis. It was very touching that their small town community offered their time to help raise the appropriately named baby, Noel.

★★★ 1/2

[Miss Kitty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gosh, I do love me some Lurlene McDaniel. Ever since I first read copies of The Secret Life of Steffie Martin and Will I Ever Dance Again? that I got from the school book fair in the third or fourth grade I’ve been an addict. Having said all that, I think that Lurlene is kinda sappy. Actually, not kinda but for reals sappy. But I get the feeling she doesn’t really care what I think. So I’ll just review this book.
There’s this teenager girl named Briana, see? And she has this wicked penchant for picking loser boyfriends and getting into fights with her mom. So she runs away with one of her loser boyfriends. Then she returns months later An Unwed Mother-to-Be. The Horror! Anyway, she gets a job at Evil Wal-Mart and then tragedy strikes (I think she has an aneurysm) and she’s in a coma. What’s her family gonna do? Well, what any God-fearin’ Christians would do – turn the woman into The Vessel, wait for the baby to be born, then pull the plug on The Vessel. Alas, poor Briana, they knew her well. Meanwhile, Briana’s family wonders what they’re gonna do about the baby – adoption or keep it? After all, Briana’s spirit will live on in the baby, la-di-da. Briana’s mom is all sick-like and says she can’t take care of the bairn. Briana’s sister wants the mom to keep the wee child once it’s born. Meanwhile she has a romance with someone in band.
Now, you may read this book and say, “What the… this is sentimental clap-trap!” and that may be the case. But verily I tell you, Lurlene’s writing has IMPROVED TREMENDOUSLY over those early book fair books. TREMENDOUSLY. So, come on… give Lurlene a chance.

[Geek&glitter · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was ridiculous. I've never read anything else by Lurlene McDaniel, but she's my coworker's favorite author, and she lent me this book because I liked The Fault in Our Stars and The Probability of Miracles. I read it to the end, hoping something would redeem it, but no. The writing was awful. It was simplistic, filled with unnecessary flowery descriptions of random things, and the narrator kept switching voices annoyingly. The characters were cardboard and just irritatingly stupid. If they had said "down at the Wal-mart" one more time I was going to pull my hair out. And the plot was laughable. Don't get me started on the could-not-be-more-cliched scene where the main character suddenly realizes out of nowhere that she loves her friend and "drowns in his good-looking blue eyes". Don't worry, about twenty pages of barf about how hot his jeans were and a little lusting over him instead of, you know, paying attention at her sister's funeral, she just as quickly decides she doesn't care that her best friend is dating him. I really wanted to care about this family who lost a daughter/sister and had to take care of her child, but because the whole thing was so asinine, it was impossible for me. This premise could have been beautiful, about sisterly love and loss. As it stands, I would not recommend this book at all.

[Veronica · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Lurlene McDaniel's writing, but this was just disappointing. There is a bit of a repetitive pattern to her books, but her writing usually creative enough to make the stories enjoyable. While the plot for this story did seem a bit different from her usual work, the writing was absolutely atrocious. I found the book rather difficult to read. I initially thought this was one of her earlier, older works, so I forgave her for the lackluster writing only to find this is actually a fairly recent book. The writing made me want to cringe. I suppose she was trying to capture the innocence of Casey by making her sound young by using simple sentences, but I felt like I was listening to a six or seven year old talking. Casey was just too simple; she was extremely bland and somewhat unrealistic. I couldn't relate to her at all and had no real interest in her life. Aside from minor annoyance, I had no real feelings towards Casey. Overall, this book was a disappointment. The story itself could have been really interesting, but the manner in which it was presented in simply aggravating.

[Ella Perkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thirteen-year-old Sissy’s mother said that Sissy’s sixteen-year-old sister had a mind of her own. When running off with her “perfect” boyfriend, getting married, and ending up pregnant with an illness. This wasn’t the life that her mother wanted her to have. Sissy needs to grow up faster to be able to take care of her older sister and her mother who is just about done with the nonsense.

While reading this book I notice a text to world connection. Many girls like Briana had gotten pregnant at the age of sixteen. Those girls aren’t able to care for the child at the young age. Unfortunately in this book Briana dies and her sister and mother have to take on the responsibility of caring for those children.

I gave this book 5 stars because I thought that this book was amazing. It had so much dept of thought. So many people could be able to learn a lesson from this book. It is so related to real life it has that BIG connection.

[Tessie · Rating 2 out of 5]

At first I was surprised to see a book written by one of my favorite authors that was about a teenage pregnancy, but I soon realized that Lurlene haven't abandoned her usual stories.

Briana was running away in December and returns a year later with a surprise. Her boyfriend left her with no place to go and with a baby in her stomach. Her only option is to come home again and try to convince her mother to help her.

In the beginning was everything normal, and it was told from her little sister's point of view. She had boy trouble and spent time with her friends.

This book wasn't one of my favorites and I was a bit disappointed. However, the ending had a closure and that felt good. Except for one thing that bothered me, her boy trouble was completely random. I can't see why the author had to bring that in. Was it just because she wanted to fill the space with words?

Briana's Gift tells a story about happiness, sorrow and how to deal with life.

[Rob · Rating 2 out of 5]

Casey lives with her mother and her sister, Brianna, who according to mother "marches to the beat of a different drummer." Brianna runs away from home, only to come home a few months later. Pregnant. The mother tries to help her daughter think through the decisions she'll have to make in the near future, and things get complicated. Everybody is profoundly impacted, and lives are changed.

I felt like there was a lot of fluff in this novel. The narrator, a young girl, is very naive and never really gets me to believe she develops many profound insights. I felt like the ending was a little predictable (I mean, it's Lurlene McDaniel. We know someone is going to die). Overall, I think this book would be good for light summer reading--but I would suggest young men choose some other author.

[McKenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was really confusing in the beginning of the whole thing and I was really confused on why did Bree die wy is all this stuff happen and what happened why is this baby going to have lung problems but at the end of the book the author finished the book with an amazing ending explaining why the title was called Brianna's gift and I was wondering in the end of the book in the book was with all the little hair clips and stuff when Bree and Briana were little and now they are gong to use them in Noel's hair Bree's baby so I thought that was an amazing ending.Overall I thought this book was really good and really amazing.

[$hanel · Rating 5 out of 5]

13 year old Susanna and her 17 year old sister named Briana (but her Mum and her call her Bree for short) have been trying to get over the fact that their father is dead. Briana is the one who can grow up and move on. Briana leaves the house in Tenessee so she can go with her boyfriend Jerry Stevens to L.A. where they plan to get married and find jobs together. When Briana comes home about 8 months later she has a surprise for Susanna and her Mum. The surprise brings a lot of pressure to the small family and this means stress too. Will the family ever get through this hard time?

[Denisse · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read this book (in one sitting) a long time ago when I was at Fully-Booked. This book is very touching. It's about a story of a girl who has a sister named Briana. I don't want to spoil the story T_T.

Anyways, the story goes when her sister passed away while she and the rest of her family are having a hard time going on with their lives. But her baby was still inside her. They kept the baby alive through machines and when the baby was born, they named the baby ****. And that is how he/she is interpreted as a gift.

[Brianna K · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this book Briana runs off to California when she was 16. When she returned she announces she is pregnant. Her and her family don't know what to do. Her decisions have to come to a hault when she collapses working in Walmart. The doctors don't know what they will be able to do. I would recommend this book to any girl because it shows you something that could actually happen in real life, and some consequences that follow!

[Paige · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was okay, but I didn't like the relationship between Sissy, Stu, and Melody. If they are supposed to be her best friends, they sure don't act like it. I also didn't like how Sissy was perfectly fine with Stu and Melody dating even though Sissy had a crush on Stu, it just wasn't realistic. I did like how Sissy didn't let her mother give the baby up for adoption though I did find it silly on why the mom would give up her only granddaughter by Bree.

[Sherina Roten · Rating 3 out of 5]

Briana runs off with her boyfriend, and got pregnant. Her boyfriend lefted her, she ran back home and wanted to stay. She wanted to make a good life for her baby, so she got a job. Briana becomes ill while at work. They tell her sister and mom that she she breathing off of a machine to keep the baby alive. Her sister wants to keep Brianas baby. Briana died and her mom gave up her only grandchild.