A Christmas for Shacktown

A Christmas for Shacktown is a Donald Duck comic strip story written by Carl Barks in January, 1952.

The story begins with Donald's nephews passing through Shacktown, the most impoverished area of Duckburg.They progressively get more depressed as they see the living conditions there, children of their age dressed in rugs and having tired expressions, hunger and sickness evident in many of them.They feel responsible for it and want to help those poor children find some happiness.They have the idea of organizing a Christmas celebration.They ask for the help of their Aunt Daisy Duck ,president of a local ladies' societie, and their friends in the Junior Woodchucks.But as it soon becomes evident raising enough money is not as easy as it sounds.With all their efforts they are still a hundrend dollars short.Donald has the idea of asking his Uncle Scrooge to donate them.Scrooge ,who is not impressed with his nephew just asking for money without doing anything to earn it, makes him a deal.If Donald manages to raise fifty dollars, Scrooge will donate the other fifty.Enthusiastic Donald soon finds out that asking for charity during the hollidays, when every family struggles with its own increased expenses ,is not a succesful way to raise money.He tries to trick his Uncle into making the donation but that fails to.Only when he swallows his pride and asks for his cousin Gladstone's help he finaly succeeds in raising his fifty dollars.When he arrives at his Uncle's Money Bin, the apparently shocked for some reason Scrooge only manages to say that it is too late.An enraged Donald opens the door of the Money bin and finds out what his Uncle had ment.The floor had collapsed under two much weight and the money had been lost in the caverns below Duckburg.Now Donald still is fifty dollars short and has to take care of a shocked and depressed Uncle.Finaly his nephews find a way to reach Scrooge's money and Scrooge promises them the first money which come on surface.Which happen to be thousands of dollars.The story ends with a great Christmas celebration for the children of Shacktown.

It is often considered the most memorable of Barks Christmas stories as the scenes in Shacktown are often described as depressing and even haunting in contrast with the other areas of Duckburg.Another theme of the storie is the difference between a will for charity and the efforts needed to raise enough money for it.Scrooge , although concetrated on his own problems during this story, still makes a valid point in prooving to his nephew how hard it is to actualy earn the money that he finds so easy to ask. Scrooge's belief in hard work ,often evident in his stories, is here seen from a negative light as he doesn't seem to believe in charity and doesn't feel responsible for the fate of Shacktown's inhabitants.Though the story has a happy ending Barks has left the fate of the Shacktown people deliberately vague.They get to celebrate Christmas but the question of what happens to them once the celebration ends and the rest of the citizens of Duckburg choose to forget them again is left unanswered.Fans of Barks work have read this as a deliberate attempt by Barks to undermine the happy ending and pose some questions.It is considered the Barks storie that comes closer to focusing on social commentary.