"As far as anyone could tell, Imogene was just jlike the rest of the Herdmans. She never learned anything either, except dirty words and secrets about everybody. Twice a year we had to go to the health room to get weighed and measured, and Imogene always managed to find out exactly what everybody weighed." Robinson, p. 8
"Everyone had been waiting all this time for the Herdmans to do something absolutley unexpected. And sure enough, that was what happened. Imogene Herdman was crying. In the candlelight her face was all shiny with tears and she didn't even bother to wipe them away." Robinson, 77
"As far as I'm concerned, Mary is always going to look a lot like Imogene Herdman- sort of nervous and bewildered, but ready to clobber anyone who laid a hand on her baby. And the Wise Men are always going to be Leroy and his brother, bearing ham." Robinson, p. 80
So, I've read this before, or rather it was read to me... I just got done rereading it and was thinking about how Princess and The Goblin is considered to be a bildungsroman. I also remembered this time when I was in high school and reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. What does this have to do with The Best Christmas Pageant Ever?? Well, in reading this book again, I realize that it is a bildungsroman. And it isn't one person who grows up it's everyone.
What that's outrageous, this can't be right...
Well, it seems to me that everyone grows in this book. Rather, by the end of the book the town comes to love and accept the Herdman family. At the beginning everyone loathes them. And you can understand why... They are... nosy, rude, they scare people. They just aren't the type of people you'd want to associate with. Then, the book takes an unexpected turn and the Herdmans go to church and decide to take part in the pageant. It ends up going really well, for both the audience and the Herdmans. In the end, everyone says that it really is the best pageant ever. It's different, and memorable and something everyone of the fictional characters will remember forever. But how do they grow?? I think one thing that people are, and I hate this, is judgemental. By the end, they have learned that the Herdman family isn't as bad as they once made them out to be.
Then we get to talking about Imogene...
In the beginning she is kind of a monster of a child. She was intrusive, and nosy. She was a person everyone feared. When she decides to take on the role of Mary she changes, just a little. But, the change is quite remarkable. She learns that she can be calm, and maybe even sweet. She cares enough to listen when she hears the story of Jesus birth. She also cares about Jesus the infant, she cares about his well-being. She learns to hate Herod, and wants to know more about what happened to him. Then the day of the pageant rolls around and its amazing. Imogene cries. She is filled with the spirit of Christmas. Her brothers offer their ham, that was donated to them by the church, as an offering to the "baby Jesus." When the play is over, they all seemed to have grown as a result of being in the play.
Now for the narrator, I think that she grows up too. Just a little but as it is with Imogene, the change is significant. Like the others in the town, she loathes the Herdman family. Since Imogene is in the same grade as she is, she loathes her most. By the end, she grows to admire her and even respect her. She says that when she thinks about it she will always picture Mary as Imogene. That rather touching... Moreover, the conflict is resolved. It doesn't seem as if people fear Imogene anyomore, not even the narrator. No they are fine, and maybe even decent.
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