Book excerpt: "Joyfully riffing on a holiday classic, Tom Averill's A Carol Dickens Christmas is a moving and contemporary tale that, like the work of that other Dickens, focuses on what affects us deeply: judgment and compassion, grief and hope, cruelty and kindness. With a warm and realistic cast of characters, this is a story for people who believe in the magic of the season and--more to the point--in simply caring for each other."--Laura Moriarty, author of The Chaperone