Paterson's well-tuned, sentimental Christmas stories [in Angels and Other Strangers] seem less well suited to a children's book than to a family magazine, especially a church magazine—and indeed the flap tells us that they were originally read in Christmas Eve church services by the author's minister husband. Of the nine, three effect epiphanies of sorts in church…. [Several] set up encounters between comfortable middle-class Protestants and others who are poor, black, and/or outcast; in these Paterson does well with the interplay, and she never falsifies the characters on either side or overplays her hand. This is several notches above the usual Christmas story collection, and a boon for groups concerned with the meaning of the holiday.

A review of "Angels and Other Strangers," in Kirkus Reviews, Vol. XLVII, No. 20, October 15, 1979, p. 1211.