Talk:Oh! Christina!

Reviews
The Outlook, 1 May 1909:
 * "You are gey fine at the comic," cries Christina to her prim aunt when the latter unbends; and the same thing may be said of Mr. J. J. Bell. His "Oh! Christina!" is quite as amusing as was his "Wee Macgreegor," but with a quaint, bristling, slangy, good-hearted little girl as the exponent of Glasga' humor, instead of a laddie. The book may be read in an hour, and that hour at least will be one of jollity.


 * The Nation, 17 June 1909:
 * The publishers confidently blazon forth this little story as "the laughing hit of the year." We suppose such a claim would have to be substantiated on a basis of number of copies sold, and we should say that unless the author of "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage-Patch" exerts herself to some purpose, the prophecy may very likely come true. Christina is a feminine version of "Wee Macgreegor," with the precocious wit and the uncanny canniness of the Glasgow street arab. After a harum-scarum childhood, fate or her creator puts her in charge (the phrase may be left ambiguous) of a maiden aunt who keeps a toy-shop in the village of "Kilmabeg." The contrast in age, training, and temperament between these two furnishes the fun. It is good fun, and has the advantage of being obvious enough for that child-like audience, the Best-Buying public.


 * Miss Purvis, the aunt, is like the serious and literal-minded interlocutor who sets off the rollicking humorist of a double turn in vaudeville. Her lines are restricted chiefly to "Really, Christina!" and "You are a very strange girl." She is three times as much surprised and shocked at everything Christina says or does as the audience can possibly be expected to be. But, in a way, she is necessary. Her simplicity gives the cue, keeps the ball of Christina's impishness busily rolling. Christina and her nonsense are likely to be much laughed at and quickly forgotten, which is, of course, laying more to her credit than to her discredit.