The Cricket on the Hearth Review

The Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens is one of his 5 shorter Christmas works. It follows Carrier John Peerybingle and his much younger wife Dot and the cricket that lives in their hearth.

I gave it 4 out of 5 stars. The writing style was typical lyrical Dickens (which I quite enjoy). As is also typical for me when reading Dickens, it took a little while for me to get caught up in the story, but once I did it was really interesting. The story had that familiar quality of unexpected twists and turns that I love about Dickens writing.

The characters were fascinating and complex. I adored John in his simple and honest nature and Caleb the sweet but misguided father. The sort of “villain” of the story was reliably grim and dark. Even though it is a shorter story, there are all the qualities I would expect from one of his full works and I might have enjoyed this even more because of the limited number of characters and ramblings that a longer story would have contained.

The only thing that really took me by surprise (and disappointed me a little) with this book is that it is labeled a Christmas writing, but there was nothing in the story to make it especially pertinent to the winter season. I’m not even sure what season the story itself takes place in except that it is said to be fairly cold out, but it is never directly stated. I am really curious to know why this has been classified as one of his “Christmas” books.

Overall, it is a sweet and heartwarming love story with all the wonderful qualities of a Dickens work, just nothing to do with Christmastime.