The year is 1915, and Royce and Saraleen find themselves missing their father, away working on the construction of New York City's subway system, as Christmas draws near. Without Pap, some of their family's annual holiday traditions - such as cutting down a Christmas tree on their rural Pennsylvania farm, Wildroot - just aren't possible. They still have their mother, Mim, and her wonderful "belly-hum jam," but no matter how delicious of a treat it is, jam can't change the fact that Pap is so far away. Or can it...?

An engaging Christmas story, one which emphasizes the importance of family togetherness at the holidays, Mim's Christmas Jam also offers an interesting depiction of the construction workers who labored beneath New York City in order to build its extensive subway system. The resolution of the tension between worker and supervisor here (as well as the return of Pap to his family for the holiday) felt rather unlikely to me, but I did appreciate the fact that Pap's friends were a diverse group - an Irishman, an Italian man, and a fellow African-American - as this reflects the diverse workforce that built the subway system. The artwork, done with luma dyes and acrylic on scratch-board, has an appealing, impressionistic quality to it. Recommended to young readers looking for Christmas stories with a historical setting, or featuring African-American families. ( )

This was sort of an odd Christmas tale - just because so much of the focus was on the father working on the subway in New York. The drawings of him and his friends toiling underground while their mean and evil oversears look on give a sort of hellish depiction of his experience - probably true to life, but not very invoking of the Christmas spirit!

That said, I enjoyed the story about how Mim's belly-hum jam can make even the meanest person have a nice, generous moment; there's a recipe inluded for the jam, but I'm too lazy to make it. Sounds good though!

The illustrations are stylistically interesting - done on a black background, it looks like, with lots of big swirling lines creating folds in clothes and texture in the subway scenes. ( )