The Christmas Cuckoo is a new radio play of an old Christmas tale. Tune in to KXCI to hear it Christmas Eve at 8pm (after the Weekly Green) and on Christmas Day at 3pm, at the start of The Home Stretch.
Produced and arranged by James Jenkin
Written by Frances Browne (adapted)
A blind girl was born in 1816 in Donegal, Ireland. She was the seventh of twelve children. She really wanted to learn how to write. She made a deal with her brothers and sisters, that if she did their chores for them, they would read aloud their lessons to her in the evening. This girl’s name was Frances Browne.
When Frances was older she would think up poems and her sister would write them down. Her first poem was published when she was 24. When she was 31, Frances and her sister moved to Scotland, where Frances became a popular author. At age 36, she moved to London and wrote books. Her most famous book is Granny’s Wonderful Chair. One of the stories in this book is called the Christmas Cuckoo. Frances Browne died in 1879 at age 63.
In 1914, a woman named Francis Jenkins Olcott published a book of stories for young children to practice their reading. The book was called, Good Stories for Great Holidays. In the book, Francis Olcott included an edited version of Frances Browne’s Christmas Cuckoo story (pages 331-342). Francis Olcott died in 1963. The text of her book is available at the University of Virginia’s website.
